A SANTA CLAUS HELD UP
It was about five months after the multi-millionaire, Mr. Stanley G.
Fulton, had started for South America, that Edward D. Norton, Esq.,
received the following letter:—
DEAR NED:—I’m glad there’s only one more month to wait. I
feel like Santa Claus with a box of toys, held up by a snowdrift, and
I just can’t wait to see the children dance—when they get them.
And let me say right here and now how glad I am that I did this
thing. Oh, yes, I’ll admit I still feel like the small boy at the
keyhole, at times, perhaps; but I’ll forget that—when the children
begin to dance.
And, really, never have I seen a bunch of people whom I thought
a little money would do more good to than the Blaisdells here in
Hillerton. My only regret is that I didn’t know about Miss Maggie
Duff, so that she could have had some, too. (Oh, yes, I’ve found
out all about “Poor Maggie” now, and she’s a dear—the typical
self-sacrificing, self-effacing bearer of everybody’s burdens,
including a huge share of her own!) However, she isn’t a Blaisdell,
of course, so I couldn’t have worked her into my scheme very well,
I suppose, even if I had known about her. They are all fond of
her—though they impose on her time and her sympathies abominably. But
I reckon she’ll get some of the benefits of the others’ thousands.
Mrs. Jane, in particular, is always wishing she could do something
for “Poor Maggie,” so I dare say she’ll be looked out for all right.
As to who will prove to be the wisest handler of the hundred
thousand, and thus my eventual heir, I haven’t the least idea. As
I said before, they all need money, and need it badly—need it to
be comfortable and happy, I mean. They aren’t really poor, any of
them, except, perhaps, Miss Flora. She is a little hard up, poor
soul. Bless her heart! I wonder what she’ll get first, Niagara, the
phonograph, or something to eat without looking at the price. Did I
ever write you about those “three wishes” of hers?
I can’t see that any of the family are really extravagant unless,
perhaps, it’s Mrs. James—“Hattie.” She _is_ ambitious, and is
inclined to live on a scale a little beyond her means, I judge. But
that will be all right, of course, when she has the money to gratify
her tastes. Jim—poor fellow, I shall be glad to see him take it easy,
for once. He reminds me of the old horse I saw the other day running
one of those infernal treadmill threshing machines—always going, but
never getting there. He works, and works hard, and then he gets a
job nights and works harder; but he never quite catches up with his
bills, I fancy. What a world of solid comfort he’ll take with that
hundred thousand! I can hear him draw the long breath now—for once
every bill paid!
Of course, the Frank Blaisdells are the most thrifty of the bunch—at
least, Mrs. Frank, “Jane,” is—and I dare say they would be the most
conservative handlers of my millions. But time will tell. Anyhow, I
shall be glad to see them enjoy themselves meanwhile with the hundred
thousand. Maybe Mrs. Jane will be constrained to clear my room of
a few of the mats and covers and tidies! I have hopes. At least, I
shall surely have a vacation from her everlasting “We can’t afford
it,” and her equally everlasting “Of course, if I had the money I’d
do it.” Praise be for that!—and it’ll be worth a hundred thousand to
me, believe me, Ned.
As for her husband—I’m not sure how he will take it. It isn’t corn
or peas or flour or sugar, you see, and I’m not posted as to his
opinion of much of anything else. He’ll spend some of it, though,—I’m
sure of that. I don’t think he always thoroughly appreciates his
wife’s thrifty ideas of economy. I haven’t forgotten the night I
came home to find Mrs. Jane out calling, and Mr. Frank rampaging
around the house with every gas jet at full blast. It seems he
was packing his bag to go on a hurried business trip. He laughed
a little sheepishly—I suppose he saw my blinking amazement at the
illumination—and said something about being tired of always feeling
his way through pitch-dark rooms. So, as I say, I’m not quite sure of
Mr. Frank when he comes into possession of the hundred thousand. He’s
been cooped up in the dark so long he may want to blow in the whole
hundred thousand in one grand blare of light. However, I reckon I
needn’t worry—he’ll still have Mrs. Jane—to turn some of the gas jets
down!
As for the younger generation—they’re fine, every one of them;
and just think what this money will mean to them in education and
advantages! Jim’s son, Fred, eighteen, is a fine, manly boy. He’s
got his mother’s ambitions, and he’s keen for college—even talks of
working his way (much to his mother’s horror) if his father can’t
find the money to send him. Of course, that part will be all right
now—in a month.
The daughter, Bessie (almost seventeen), is an exceedingly pretty
girl. She, too, is ambitious—almost too much so, perhaps, for
her happiness, in the present state of their pocketbook. But of
course that, too, will be all right, after next month. Benny, the
nine-year-old, will be concerned as little as any one over that
hundred thousand dollars, I imagine. The real value of the gift he
will not appreciate, of course; in fact, I doubt if he even approves
of it—lest his privileges as to meals and manners be still further
curtailed. Poor Benny! Now, Mellicent—
Perhaps in no one do I expect to so thoroughly rejoice as I do in
poor little pleasure-starved Mellicent. I realize, of course, that
it will mean to her the solid advantages of college, music-culture,
and travel; but I must confess that in my dearest vision, the child
is reveling in one grand whirl of pink dresses and chocolate bonbons.
Bless her dear heart! I _gave_ her one five-pound box of candy,
but I never repeated the mistake. Besides enduring the manifestly
suspicious disapproval of her mother because I had made the gift, I
have had the added torment of seeing that box of chocolates doled
out to that poor child at the rate of two pieces a day. They aren’t
gone yet, but I’ll warrant they’re as hard as bullets—those wretched
bonbons. I picked the box up yesterday. You should have heard it
rattle!
But there is yet another phase of the money business in connection
with Mellicent that pleases me mightily. A certain youth by the
name of Carl Pennock has been beauing her around a good deal, since
I came. The Pennocks have some money—fifty thousand, or so, I
believe—and it is reported that Mrs. Pennock has put her foot down
on the budding romance—because the Blaisdells _have not got money
enough_! (Begin to see where my chuckles come in?) However true
this report may be, the fact remains that the youth has not been near
the house for a month past, nor taken Mellicent anywhere. Of course,
it shows him and his family up—for just what they are; but it has
been mortifying for poor Mellicent. She’s showing her pluck like a
little trump, however, and goes serenely on her way with her head
just enough in the air—but not too much.
I don’t think Mellicent’s real heart is affected in the least—she’s
only eighteen, remember—but her pride _is_. And her mother—!
Mrs. Jane is thoroughly angry as well as mortified. She says
Mellicent is every whit as good as those Pennocks, and that the woman
who would let a paltry thing like money stand in the way of her son’s
affections is a pretty small specimen. For her part, she never did
have any use for rich folks, anyway, and she is proud and glad that
she’s poor! I’m afraid Mrs. Jane was very angry when she said that.
However, so much for her—and she may change her opinion one of these
days.
My private suspicion is that young Pennock is already repentant,
and is pulling hard at his mother’s leading-strings; for I was with
Mellicent the other day when we met the lad face to face on the
street. Mellicent smiled and nodded casually, but Pennock—he turned
all colors of the rainbow with terror, pleading, apology, and assumed
indifference all racing each other across his face. Dear, dear, but
he was a sight!
There is, too, another feature in the case. It seems that a new
family by the name of Gaylord have come to town and opened up the
old Gaylord mansion. Gaylord is a son of old Peter Gaylord, and is a
millionaire. They are making quite a splurge in the way of balls and
liveried servants, and motor cars, and the town is agog with it all.
There are young people in the family, and especially there is a girl,
Miss Pearl, whom, report says, the Pennocks have selected as being a
suitable mate for Carl. At all events the Pennocks and the Gaylords
have struck up a furious friendship, and the young people of both
families are in the forefront of innumerable social affairs—in most
of which Mellicent is left out.
So now you have it—the whole story. And next month comes to
Mellicent’s father one hundred thousand dollars. Do you wonder I say
the plot thickens?
As for myself—you should see me! I eat whatever I like. (The man
who says health biscuit to me now gets knocked down—and I’ve got
the strength to do it, too!) I can walk miles and not know it.
I’ve gained twenty pounds, and I’m having the time of my life. I’m
even enjoying being a genealogist—a little. I’ve about exhausted
the resources of Hillerton, and have begun to make trips to the
neighboring towns. I can even spend an afternoon in an old cemetery
copying dates from moss-grown gravestones, and not entirely lose my
appetite for dinner—I mean, supper. I was even congratulating myself
that I was really quite a genealogist when, the other day, I met the
_real thing_. Heavens, Ned, that man had fourteen thousand four
hundred and seventy-two dates at his tongue’s end, and he said them
all over to me. He knows the name of every Blake (he was a Blake)
back to the year one, how many children they had (and they had some
families then, let me tell you!), and when they all died, and why. I
met him one morning in a cemetery. I was hunting for a certain stone
and I asked him a question. Heavens! It was like setting a match
to one of those Fourth-of-July flower-pot sky-rocket affairs. That
question was the match that set him going, and thereafter he was a
gushing geyser of names and dates. I never heard anything like it.
He began at the Blaisdells, but skipped almost at once to the
Blakes—there were a lot of them near us. In five minutes he had me
dumb from sheer stupefaction. In ten minutes he had made a century
run, and by noon he had got to the Crusades. We went through the Dark
Ages very appropriately, waiting in an open tomb for a thunderstorm
to pass. We had got to the year one when I had to leave to drive
back to Hillerton. I’ve invited him to come to see Father Duff. I
thought I’d like to have them meet. He knows a lot about the Duffs—a
Blake married one, ’way back somewhere. I’d like to hear him and
Father Duff talk—or, rather, I’d like to hear him _try_ to
talk to Father Duff. Did I ever write you Father Duff’s opinion of
genealogists? I believe I did.
I’m not seeing so much of Father Duff these days. Now that it’s grown
a little cooler he spends most of his time in his favorite chair
before the cook stove in the kitchen.
Jove, what a letter this is! It should be shipped by freight and
read in sections. But I wanted you to know how things are here. You
can appreciate it the more—when you come.
You’re not forgetting, of course, that it’s on the first day of
November that Mr. Stanley G. Fulton’s envelope of instructions is to
be opened.
As ever yours,
JOHN SMITH.