won wonst. An Kate wants a dollie offul. In the reere 718 19th Street
by the gas house. Your friend Will."
The Sergeant read it over twice very carefully and glanced over the
page at the sheep, as if taking stock and wondering why Kate's dollie
was not there. Then he took the sheep and the letter and went over to
the Captain's door. A gruff "Come in!" answered his knock. The Captain
was pulling off his overcoat. He had just come in from his dinner.
"Captain," said the Sergeant, "we found this in the pocket of Black
Bill who is locked up for picking Mrs. ----'s pocket an hour ago. It is
a clear case. He didn't even try to give them the slip," and he set the
sheep upon the table and laid the letter beside it.
"Black Bill?" said the Captain, with something of a start; "the dickens
you say!" And he took up the letter and read it. He was not a very good
penman, was little Will. The Captain had even a harder time of it than
the Sergeant had had making out his message. Three times he went over
it, spelling out the words, and each time comparing it with the woolly
exhibit that was part of the evidence, before he seemed to understand.
Then it was in a voice that would have frightened little Will very much
could he have heard it, and with a black look under his bushy eyebrows,
that he bade the Sergeant "Fetch Bill up here!" One might almost
have expected the little white lamb to have taken to its heels with
fright at having raised such a storm, could it have run at all. But it
showed no signs of fear. On the contrary it baa-ed quite lustily when
the Sergeant should have been safely out of earshot. The hand of the
Captain had accidentally rested upon the woolly head in putting down
the letter. But the Sergeant was not out of earshot. He heard it and
grinned.
An iron door in the basement clanged and there were steps in the
passageway. The doorman brought in Bill. He stood by the door, sullenly
submissive. The Captain raised his head. It was in the shade.
"So you are back, are you?" he said.
The thief nodded.
The Captain bent his brows upon him and said with sudden fierceness,
"You couldn't keep honest a month, could you?"
"They wouldn't let me. Who wants a thief in his pay? And the children
were starving."
It was said patiently enough, but it made the Captain wince all the
same. They were his own words. But he did not give in so easily.
"Starving?" he repeated harshly. "And that's why you got this, I
suppose," and he pushed the sheep from under the newspaper that had
fallen upon it by accident and covered it up.
The thief looked at it and flushed to the temples. He tried to speak
but could not. His face worked, and he seemed to be strangling. In
the middle of his fight to master himself he saw the child's crumpled
message on the desk. Taking a quick step across the room he snatched it
up, wildly, fiercely.
"Captain," he gasped, and broke down utterly. The hardened thief wept
like a woman.
The Captain rang his bell. He stood with his back to the prisoner when
the doorman came in. "Take him down," he commanded. And the iron door
clanged once more behind the prisoner.
Ten minutes later the reporters were discussing across the way the
nature of "the case" which the night promised to develop. They had
piped off the Captain and one of his trusted men leaving the building
together, bound east. Could they have followed them all the way, they
would have seen them get off the car at Nineteenth Street, and go
toward the gas house, carefully scanning the numbers of the houses as
they went. They found one at last before which they halted. The Captain
searched in his pocket and drew forth the baby's letter to Santa Claus,
and they examined the number under the gas lamp. Yes, that was right.
The door was open, and they went right through to the rear.
Up in the third story three little noses were flattened against the
window pane, and three childish mouths were breathing peep-holes
through which to keep a lookout for the expected Santa Claus. It
was cold, for there was no fire in the room, but in their fever of
excitement the children didn't mind that. They were bestowing all their
attention upon keeping the peep-holes open.
"Do you think he will come?" asked the oldest boy--there were two boys
and a girl--of Kate.
"Yes, he will. I know he will come. Papa said so," said the child in a
tone of conviction.
"I'se so hungry, and I want my sheep," said Baby Will.
"Wait and I'll tell you of the wolf," said his sister, and she took him
on her lap. She had barely started when there were steps on the stairs
and a tap on the door. Before the half-frightened children could answer
it was pushed open. Two men stood on the threshold. One wore a big fur
overcoat. The baby looked at him in wide-eyed wonder.
"Is you Santa Claus?" he asked.
"Yes, my little man, and are you Baby Will?" said a voice that was
singularly different from the harsh one Baby Will's father had heard so
recently in the Captain's office, and yet very like it.
"See. This is for you, I guess," and out of the big roomy pocket came
the woolly sheep and baa-ed right off as if it were his own pasture in
which he was at home. And well might any sheep be content nestling at a
baby heart so brimful of happiness as little Will's was then, child of
a thief though he was.
"Papa spoke for it, and he spoke for Kate, too, and I guess for
everybody," said the bogus Santa Claus, "and it is all right. My sled
will be here in a minute. Now we will just get to work and make ready
for him. All help!"
The Sergeant behind the desk in the Detective Office might have had a
fit had he been able to witness the goings-on in that rear tenement in
the next hour; and then again he might not. There is no telling about
those Sergeants. The way that poor flat laid itself out of a sudden was
fairly staggering. It was not only that a fire was made and that the
pantry filled up in the most extraordinary manner; but a real Christmas
tree sprang up, out of the floor, as it were, and was found to be all
besprinkled with gold and stars and cornucopias with sugarplums. From
the top of it, which was not higher than Santa Claus could easily
reach, because the ceiling was low, a marvellous doll, with real hair
and with eyes that could open and shut, looked down with arms wide
open to take Kate to its soft wax heart. Under the branches of the
tree browsed every animal that went into and came out of Noah's Ark,
and there were glorious games of Messenger Boy and Three Bad Bears,
and honey-cakes and candy apples, and a little yellow-bird in a cage,
and what not? It was glorious. And when the tea-kettle began to sing,
skilfully manipulated by Santa Claus's assistant, who nominally was
known in Mulberry Street as Detective Sergeant Murphy, it was just too
lovely for anything. The baby's eyes grew wider and wider, and Kate's
were shining with happiness, when in the midst of it all she suddenly
stopped and said:--
"But where is papa? Why don't he come?"
Santa Claus gave a little start at the sudden question, but pulled
himself together right away.
"Why, yes," he said, "he must have got lost. Now you are all right we
will just go and see if we can find him. Mrs. McCarthy here next door
will help you keep the kettle boiling and the lights burning till we
come back. Just let me hear that sheep baa once more. That's right! I
bet we'll find papa." And out they went.
An hour later, while Mr. ----, the Magistrate, and his good wife were
viewing with mock dismay the array of little stockings at their hearth
in their fine up-town house, and talking of the adventure of Mrs. ----
with the pickpocket, there came a ring at the door-bell and the Captain
of the detectives was ushered in. What he told them I do not know, but
this I do know, that when he went away the honorable Magistrate went
with him, and his wife waved good-by to them from the stoop with wet
eyes as they drove away in a carriage hastily ordered up from a livery
stable. While they drove down town, the Magistrate's wife went up to
the nursery and hugged her sleeping little ones, one after the other,
and tear-drops fell upon their warm cheeks that had wiped out the guilt
of more than one sinner before, and the children smiled in their sleep.
They say among the simple-minded folk of far-away Denmark that then
they see angels in their dreams.
The carriage stopped in Mulberry Street, in front of Police
Headquarters, and there was great scurrying among the reporters, for
now they were sure of their "case." But no "prominent citizen" came
out, made free by the Magistrate, who opened court in the Captain's
office. Only a rough-looking man with a flushed face, whom no one
knew, and who stopped on the corner and looked back as one in a dream
and then went east, the way the Captain and his man had gone on their
expedition personating no less exalted a personage than Santa Claus
himself.
That night there was Christmas, indeed, in the rear tenement "near the
gas house," for papa had come home just in time to share in its cheer.
And there was no one who did it with a better will, for the Christmas
evening that began so badly was the luckiest night in his life. He had
the promise of a job on the morrow in his pocket, along with something
to keep the wolf from the door in the holidays. His hard days were
over, and he was at last to have his chance to live an honest life. And
it was the baby's letter to Santa Claus and the baa sheep that did it
all, with the able assistance of the Captain and the Sergeant. Don't
let us forget the Sergeant.
THE BURGOMASTER'S CHRISTMAS
The burgomaster was in a bad humor. The smoke from his long pipe, which
ordinarily rose in leisurely meditative rings signaling official calm
and fair weather, came to-day in short, angry puffs as he tossed his
mail impatiently about on the desk. A reprimand from headquarters,
where they knew about as much of a burgomaster's actual work as he of
the prime minister's! Less. Those bureaucrats never came in touch with
real things. He smiled a little grimly as he thought that that was what
his own people had said of him when twenty years before he had come
from the capital to the little provincial town with his mind firmly
made up to many things which--well, a man grows older and wiser. Life
has its lessons for men, though it pass by the red tape in department
bureaus. That never changes. His people and he, now--The stern wrinkle
in the furrowed forehead relaxed, and he leaned back in his chair,
blowing a long, contented ring, which brought a sigh of relief from the
old clerk in the outer office. The skies were clearing.
In truth, despite his habitual sternness of manner, there was no more
beloved man in the town of Hammel than the burgomaster. His kindness
of heart was proverbial. The law had in him a faithful executor; the
staff of office was no willow wand in his hand to bend to every wind
that blew. To the evil-doer he was a hard master, but many were the
stories that were whispered of how, having sent a thief to jail, he
had taken care of his wife and children, who were not to blame. In
fact, word had come from more than one distant town of how this or
that ne'er-do-well, after squaring himself with the law in Burgomaster
Brent's jurisdiction, had made a new start, helped somehow where
he might have expected frowns and suspicion. But of this, Hammel
tongues were careful not to wag within that official's hearing. Those
things were his secret, if, indeed,--the matrons wagged their heads
knowingly,--they were not his wife's, the burgomasterinde's; and so
they were to stay.
Whether something of all this had come to smooth the burgomaster's
brow or not, it was not for long. There was a tap on the door, and, in
answer to his brisk "Come in," there entered Jens, the forester, with a
swarthy, sullen-looking prisoner. Jens saluted and stood, cap in hand.
"Black Hans," he said briefly. "We took him last night in the meadow
brake with a young roe."
The burgomaster's face grew cold and stern. Black Hans was an old
offender. As a magistrate the burgomaster had given him a chance twice,
but he was a confirmed poacher, who would rather lie out in the
woods through a cold winter's night on the chance of getting a deer,
and of getting into jail, too, than work a day at good wages, clever
blacksmith though he was. Now he had been caught red-handed, and would
be made to suffer for it. The burgomaster bent lowering brows upon the
prisoner.
"You couldn't keep from stealing the count's deer, not even at
Christmas," he said harshly.
The poacher looked up. Rough as he was, he was not a bad-looking
fellow. The free, if lawless, life he led was in his face and bearing.
"The deer is wild. They're for the man as can take 'em, if the count
do claim 'em," he said doggedly, and halted, as with a sudden thought.
Something had entered with him and the forester, and was even then
filling the room with a suggestion of good cheer to come. It was the
smell of the Yule goose roasting in the burgomaster's kitchen. Black
Hans looked straight into the eye of his inquisitor.
"I didn't have none--for me young ones," he added. It was not said
defiantly, but as a mere statement of fact.
An angry reply rose to the official's lip, but he checked himself.
"Take him to the lock-up," he ordered shortly, and the forester went
out with his charge.
The burgomaster heard the outer door close behind them, and turned
wearily to his mail. The count had been greatly wrought up over the
depredations of Black Hans and his kind, and would insist on an example
being made of him. Bad blood always came of these cases, for the game
law was not well thought of in the land in these democratic days. There
lingered yet resentfully the recollection of the days not so long since
when to take "the king's deer" brought a man to the block, or to the
treadmill for life. And the family of this fellow Black Hans, what was
to become of them? The burgomaster's gaze wandered abstractedly over
the envelop he was opening and rested on an unfamiliar stamp. He held
it up and took a closer look. Oh, yes; the new Christmas stamp. He knew
it well enough, with its design of the great sanatorium for tubercular
children that had been built out of the proceeds of other years' sales.
It was a pretty picture, and a worthy cause. In all Denmark there was
none that so laid hold of the popular fancy. It was the word "Yule,"
with its magic, that did it. There was no other inscription on the
stamp, and none was needed.
As his glance dwelt upon it, a curious change came over the picture. It
was no longer the great white house that he saw, with its many bright
lights, but a wretched hut, with a crooked chimney, and rags stopping a
broken pane in its only window. The dull glow of a tallow dip struggled
through the grime that lay thick upon the unbroken panes. Against one
the face of a child was pressed, a poor, pinched face that spoke of
cold and hunger and weary waiting for some one who was always late.
Something that was very much like real pain made the burgomaster wince
as the words of Black Hans came back to him, "I didn't have none--for
me young ones."
He shook his head impatiently. Why, then, did he not work for them,
instead of laying it up against his betters?
The sober little face at the window kept looking out into the night,
straight past the burgomaster, as if he were not there. How many of
them in that hut? Seven, eight, nine, the burgomaster counted mentally;
or was it ten ragged, underfed little ones, with the careworn mother
who slaved from sunrise till night for them and her rascal husband?
That child Annie who limped so pitifully, the district physician had
told him that very morning, had tuberculosis of the hip-joint, and it
was killing her slowly. Poor child! Surely this was she at the window.
Her face looked pinched and small; yet she must be nearly eleven.
Eleven! The letter dropped unopened from the burgomaster's hand. That
would have been the age of their own little girl had she lived. His
pipe went out and grew cold; his thoughts were far away. They were
travelling slowly back over a road he had shunned these many years,
until he had almost lost the trail. His little Gertrude, their only
child, a happy, winsome elf had filled the house with sunshine and
laughter until in one brief month her life had gone out like the flame
of a candle and left them alone! Since then they had been a lonesome
couple. Tenderly attached to each other, but both silent, reserved
people, husband and wife had locked their grief in their own hearts and
tried to live it down.
Had they? He could even then see his wife at her work in the room
across the yard. As she bent over her knitting, he noticed a little
stoop which he had not seen before; and surely her hair was turning
gray at the temples. His had long been so. They were growing old
in their childless home. With a sudden pang there came to him a
realization of the selfishness of his grief, which had shut her out of
it. Christmas eve! What a happy time they used to have together in the
old days around the tree! Even now he could hear the glad voices of
children from the grocer's across the street, where they were making
ready for theirs. In their house there had not been one since--since
their Gertrude left them. There was Jens, the forester, carrying in a
Christmas tree over there even now--Jens who had caught Black Hans.
What sort of Christmas would they keep in his hut, with the father
locked up, sure of a heavy fine, which meant a long time in jail, since
he had no money to settle with?
The childish face with the grave eyes was at the window again, keeping
its dismal watch. Eleven years! His mind went back, swiftly this time,
over the freshly broken road to the days when the tree was lighted in
their home on Christmas eve. Of all the nights in the year, it had been
the loneliest since, with just the two of them alone at the table,
growing old.
A flood of tenderness swept over the burgomaster, and with it came a
sudden resolve. It was not yet too late. He rose and slammed the desk
down hard, leaving the rest of his mail unopened. Three o'clock! Almost
time to light the candles, and this night he would light them himself.
Yes, he would. He tapped on the window and beckoned to Jens, who was
coming out of the grocery store. In the vestibule they held a brief
whispered consultation that concluded with the warning, "and don't you
tell my wife." The old clerk heard it and gave a start. What secret did
the burgomaster have from the burgomasterinde which Jens, the forester,
might share? But he remembered the day, in time, and bestowed upon
himself a knowing wink. He, too, had his secrets.
Jens was less quick-witted. He offered some objection apparently, but
it was promptly overruled by the burgomaster, who pushed him out with a
friendly but decisive nod and bade him be gone.
"Very little ones--two, mind. And don't let her see."
Whereupon the burgomaster put on his overcoat and went out, too.
Before the church bells rang in the holy eve, all the gossips in town
were busy with the report that the burgomaster had been buying enough
Christmas toys and candles to stock an orphan asylum. What had come
over the man? Five dolls, counted the toy-shop woman, with eyes that
grew wide in the telling--five! And they alone, the two of them, in
the big house with never a Christmas tree there that any one could
remember! It must be that they were expecting company.
Nothing was further from the mind of the burgomasterinde as she went
along with her preparations for the holiday. It had been a lonesome
day with her, for all she had tried to fill it with housewifely tasks.
Christmas eve always was. Now, as she sat with her knitting, her
thoughts dwelt upon the days long gone when it had meant something to
them; when a child's laughter had thrilled her mother heart. To her it
was no unfamiliar road she was travelling. The memory of her child,
which her husband had tried to shut out of his life lest it unman him
for his work, she had cherished in her heart, and all life's burdens
had been lightened and sweetened by it. Her one grief was that this of
all things she could not share with him. No one ever heard her speak
Gertrude's name, but there was sometimes a wistful look in her face
which caused the burgomaster vague alarm, and once or twice had led
to grave conferences with the family practitioner about Mrs. Brent's
health. The old doctor, who was also the family friend, shook his
head. The burgomasterinde was a well woman; his pills were not needed.
Once he had hinted that her loss--but the burgomaster had interrupted
him hastily. She would get over that, if indeed she had not quite
forgotten; to stir it up would do no good. And the doctor, who was wise
in other ways than those of his books, dropped the subject.
The burgomasterinde had seen Black Hans brought in in charge of Jens,
and understood what the trouble was. As he was led away to the jail,
her woman's heart yearned for his children. She knew them well. The
town gossips were right: the path to the poacher's hut her familiar
feet had found oftener than her stern husband guessed. The want and
neglect in that wretched home stirred her to pity; but more than that
it was the little crippled girl who drew her with the memory of her
own. She had overheard the doctor telling her husband that there was
no help for her where she was, and all day her mind had been busy with
half-formed plans to get her away to the great seashore hospital where
such cripples were made whole, if there was any help for them. Now,
as she passed them in review, with the picture of Black Hans behind
the bars for their background, a purpose grew up in her mind and took
shape. They should not starve and be cold on Christmas eve, if their
father _was_ in jail. She would make Christmas for them herself. And
hard upon the heels of this resolve trod a thought that made her drop
her knitting and gaze long and musingly across the yard to the window
at which her husband sat buried in his mail.
The burgomaster's face was turned from her. She could not see that he
held in his hand the very letter with the Christmas stamp that had
stirred unwonted thoughts within him; but she knew the furrow that had
grown in the years of lonely longing. She had watched it deepen, and
he had not deceived her, but she had vainly sought a way out. All at
once she knew the way. They would keep Christmas again as of old, the
two--nay, the three of them together. With a quick smile that had yet
in it a shadow of fright, she went about carrying out her purpose.
So it befell that when Jens, the forester, was making off for the woods
where the Christmas trees grew, shaking his head at the burgomaster's
queer commission, the voice of the burgomasterinde called him back to
the kitchen door, and he received the second and the greater shock of
the day.
"Get two wee ones," she wound up her directions, "and bring them here
to the back door. Don't tell my husband, and be sure he does not see."
Jens stared. "But the burgomaster--" he began. She stopped him.
"No matter about the burgomaster," she said briskly. "Only don't let
him know. Bring them here as soon as it is dark."
And Jens departed, shaking his head in hopeless bewilderment.
The early winter twilight had fallen when he returned with two green
bundles, one of which by dint of much strategy he smuggled into the
front office without the burgomasterinde seeing him, while he delivered
the other at the back door without the burgomaster being the wiser,
this being made easier by the fact that the latter had not yet returned
from his visit to the shops. When, a little while later he came home,
tiptoeing in like a guilty Santa Claus on his early evening rounds, he
shut himself in alone.