"I just wish there wasn't any New-Year."
It was a boy--Sam Jenkins--who spoke, the time New-Year's Eve, the place
Madison Avenue and Sixty-ninth Street. And what a night it was! and what
a day it had been! Snow and slush all day long, and now the wind was
blowing a gale across the Harlem flats, and the slush was freezing on
the sidewalk, and there was not a star to be seen in all the sky.
Sam was a District Messenger boy, and had been on duty all day and all
the evening, and this final call at nine o'clock, when his legs were
tired, was the last ounce that broke the camel's back.
Since the noon hour he had been in a bad humor. Now he was not only
tired, but cold and down-hearted, and as his foot slipped, and he just
managed to save the fragile parcel he was carrying, he cried out with a
spiteful voice, "I just wish there wasn't any New-Years."
Somehow Sam's ill-humor had made him very uncomfortable all the
afternoon. He had had a scuffle near the office with Dick Rainey, and
all about nothing, for Dick, noticing his peculiar gait, simply asked
him what made his legs so heavy. He had quarrelled with the old apple
woman in the little shop round the corner because she wouldn't give him
two apples for three cents, when the price was two cents apiece; he had
thrown a lump of ice at a poor cat shivering behind a barrel on the
Third Avenue, and kicked at a wretched little dog that had sniffed up to
him with his tail between his legs. Altogether Sam was in a very bad
way. He didn't care for anybody or anything. Down town the gay shop
windows had failed to catch his eye; the bright lights in the houses on
the avenue were nothing to him. He was out with himself, and so he was
out with everybody else.
I am sorry to say that when Sam had delivered his parcel he snapped up
the servant for having kept him waiting so long for his ticket, although
the poor girl had nothing to do with that, and that he kicked the
sidewalk very hard when he again put his foot upon it. And yet he had
now only to report himself at the office, and then go home.
Sam lived on one of the side streets, where the great tenement-houses
loom up in long rows. It was past ten o'clock when he entered the dark
hallway, and began his climb to the fourth floor. On the third floor he
passed the room in which Jenny Wilson, the little lame girl, lived, and
just then some one opened the door for a moment, and he heard Jenny say,
"Oh, I wonder if I will ever be well!" and "I am so tired!"
Then Sam, still cross, said to himself, "Why don't you go to sleep,
then?" but in a moment he was ashamed of himself for having said it.
Bang! went the door behind him as he entered his mother's room. Without
saying a word, he pitched his heavy coat into a corner, and shied his
cap across the room.
"What's the matter, Sam?" asked his mother, with a kindly voice.
"Matter enough," answered Sam. "I'm tired to death. It's nothing but
run, run, run all day and all night. I just wish there wasn't any
New-Year's. Nobody cares for a boy. It's Sam here, and Sam there, and
Sam all the time. That's because I'm a boy. I wish I was a girl--yes, I
do."
His mother soothed him while he ate his supper; but the frown did not
lift from his face, for there was no sunshine in his heart.
Then he went to bed--went, too, without saying his prayers. It was not
long before he fell asleep, and then he dreamed.
He dreamed that he was still in New York, that he was a messenger boy,
and that it was the day before New-Year's. All day long he was busy
carrying messages and delivering parcels, and everybody was kind, and
everybody happy. It seemed to him that it was a great thing to be a
messenger boy at such a time, when every one was doing something for
some one else, and he had a hand in so much of it. As he thought of this
(he was going up Madison Avenue again), some one seemed to say: "Sam,
you're a little fellow, but you can have a big heart if you want to. All
day it's been growing bigger and bigger; now all you have to do is to
keep it open, and see how much it will hold."
Then Sam laughed. He didn't know why, but he couldn't help it, he felt
so good all over.
Pretty soon he came across a blind man. A dog was leading the man, but
Sam helped the man over the crossing, and motioned to a butcher's cart
to hold up. Then he saw a cat, half sick, lying in the gutter, and
picked her up, saying, "Poor pussy!" and laid her inside the railing of
a house, and asked the cook, who stood in the basement doorway, if she
wouldn't give her a sop of milk. After a little he saw an old colored
woman struggling along with a heavy basket of clothes, and said, "Aunty,
I'm going up a few streets, and I'll take hold of the basket on this
side." And so he went on up the avenue and down, and the sun was so
bright and the air so pleasant, while it seemed as if he was just
helping everybody. He didn't quite understand how, but kept on taking
them into his heart, all the time feeling and saying, "Come in; there is
still plenty of room." Soon all the poor people down in the side
streets, and all the rich people up on the avenue, all the sick people
in the hospital where he was yesterday, and the dreadful people he had
seen down by the Tombs--why, he just thought of them all, and before he
knew it they came crowding up and upon him, and he took all of them into
his heart, and they didn't seem crowded a bit, for the more that came,
the more room was there left. He could not understand it, but he was
sure that the increase in the number only made him the happier; and as
he went on thinking it over, he stretched out his arms just as wide as
he could, and cried out: "Come in, all the world; come into my heart.
I've plenty of room for all, for my heart grows just as fast as my love,
and I just love everybody in this big, blessed world."
As Sam stretched out his arms, his mother woke him, saying, "I wish you
a happy New-Year, Sam, and it's time to get up."
And Sam got up. You could tell by his face that he had had a pleasant
dream, for his voice was gentle and his manner very kind, as he said,
"Well, mother, I guess I was pretty cross last night, but I'm going to
try and be good-natured to-day."
Then his mother said, "You were tired last night, Sam." That's the way
our mothers always try and overlook our faults when we are sorry.
Sam had to go to the office for half a day, and he had a little money
which he intended to spend on his presents. Before he started for home,
however, he made up with Dick Rainey by dancing a jig to show that his
legs were light to-day. On his way home he called in at the old apple
woman's to wish her a very happy New-Year, and to take two apples at her
price. He hoped to get a sight of the poor old cat and the wretched
little dog, that he might show them how sorry he was, but they were
gone. On the Third Avenue he bought two or three little things for his
mother, and an orange, some candy, and a bright picture paper for his
little sister. And as Sam thought of these friends and all his other
friends, and all the poor people in the houses and on the streets, oh!
how he wished he could buy something for them all, but he couldn't. But
then he could love them all the same.
There is not room to tell you all that he said to his mother, and
sister, and Jenny, and what a bright, happy day it was to them and to
Sam. He tried hard to make it all out, but he couldn't exactly
understand it. "It was a nice, queer dream," he said, "and I found out
one thing by it, and that is that you can make room in your heart for
just as many folks as you please, and that you can't make other folks
pleasant when you are cross yourself; and I just wish that New-Year
would come twenty times in a year."