THE CHRISTMAS SHIP SAILS
THE Rosemont and Glen Point members of the U. S. C. did not wait for the
Watkinses to join them on Saturday before beginning to do up the parcels
for the Santa Claus Ship. All the small bundles were wrapped and tied in
Dorothy's attic, but after Mrs. Smith had made a careful examination of
the attic stairs she came to the conclusion that the large packing cases
into which they must be put for transportation to the Bush Terminal in
Brooklyn could not be taken down without damage to the walls. It was
therefore decided that when the bundles were ready they were to be
brought downstairs and there packed into several large cases which had
been donated for the purpose by the local dry goods dealer and the shoe
store man.
Each of these huge boxes James declared to be probably as large as the
mysterious house which Roger was going to propose for some sort of club
work in the spring. They had been delivered early in the week and were
established on the porch at the back of the Smith cottage awaiting the
contents that were to bring pleasure to hundreds of expectant children.
Doctor Hancock was so busy that he could not bring Margaret's and
James's collection to Rosemont when it was wanted there, so Mrs. Emerson
went to Glen Point in her car and brought it back filled high with the
result of James's pasting. It was necessary to have all his boxes to
pack the candies and cookies and small gifts in.
Every afternoon a busy throng gathered in the attic, wrapping and tying
and labelling the work that kept them all so busy for the previous two
months.
"We must do up every package just as carefully as if we were going to
put it on our own Christmas tree," Helen decided. "I think half the fun
of Christmas is untying the bundles and having the room all heaped up
with tissue paper and bright ribbons."
The Club had laid in a goodly store of tissue paper of a great variety
of colors, buying it at wholesale and thus obtaining a discount over the
retail price. The question of what to tie with was a subject of
discussion.
"We certainly can't afford ribbon," Ethel Brown declared. "Even the
narrowest kind is too expensive when we have to have hundreds of yards
of it."
"We ought to have thought about it before," said Helen looking rather
worried, as this necessity should have been foreseen by the president.
"I'll go right over to town and get something now," she added, putting
on her hat. "Have any of you girls any ideas on the subject?"
"I have," replied Dorothy. "You know that bright colored binding that
dressmakers use on seams? It's sometimes silk and sometimes silk and--"
"Cotton? Ha!"
"Silk and cotton; yes, ma'am. It comes in all colors and it's just the
right width and it costs a good deal less than real ribbon."
"I suppose we can get the rolls by wholesale in assorted colors, can't
we?"
"I should suppose so."
"I have an idea, too," offered Margaret who had come over on the trolley
after school was over. "There's a tinsel cord, silver and gilt, that
doesn't cost much and it looks bright and pretty. It would be just the
thing."
"I've seen that. It does look pretty. For home packages you can stick a
sprig of holly or a poinsettia in the knot and it makes it
C-H-A-R-M-I-N-G," spelled Ethel Blue, giving herself a whirl in her
excitement.
"But we can't use stick-ups on our Christmas Ship parcels, you know."
"That's so, but the tinsel string just by itself is quite pretty
enough."
"I'll bring back bushels," said Helen. "You have enough to go on with
for a while."
"One year when Mother and I were caught at the last minute on Christmas
Eve without any ribbon," said Dorothy, "--it was after the shops had
closed, I remember, we found several bundles that we had overlooked--we
tied them with ordinary red and green string twisted together. It looked
holly-fied."
"That would be easy to do," said Roger. "See, put two balls of twine,
one red and one green in a box and punch a hole in the top and let the
two colors come out of the hole. Then use them just as if they were one
cord. See?"
"As he talked he manufactured a twine box, popping into it not only the
red and green balls about which he had been talking, but, on the other
side of a slip of pasteboard which he put in for a partition, a ball of
pink and a ball of blue.
"Watch Roger developing another color scheme," cried Ethel Blue. "I'm
going to follow that out," and she proceeded to make up a collection of
parcels wrapped in pink tissue paper tied with blue string, in blue
paper tied with pink cord and in white tied with Roger's combination.
"There's one family fitted out with a lot of presents all naturally
belonging together," she cried.
"I rather like that notion myself," announced James gravely, adjusting
his lame leg to a more comfortable position. "Please hand me that brown
and yellow tissue, somebody. I'm going to make a lot of bundles along
the color lines that my auburn haired sister uses in her dress."
"Observant little Jimmy," commented Margaret.
"Here you perceive, ladies, that I am doing up the bundles with brown
and yellow and burnt orange and tango, and lemon color, and I'm tying
them with a contrast--brown with orange and buttercup yellow with brown
and lemon yellow with white and so on. Good looking, eh?" he finished,
pointing with pride to his group of attractive parcels.
"I'm going to do a bunch with a mixture of all sorts," announced Roger.
"Here's a green tied with red and a white tied with green and a pink
tied with white and a brown tied with tango, and violet tied with blue,
_und so weiter_, as our Fraulein says when she means 'and so forth' and
can't remember her English fast enough."
"Poor Fraulein! It will be a hard Christmas for her."
"She brought in the last of her work and Mrs. Hindenburg's yesterday.
Such a mound of knitting!"
"Has any one been to the Old Ladies' Home to gather up what they have
there?" asked James.
"Roger went early this morning before school. Perhaps those old ladies
haven't been busy! See that pile?"
"All theirs? Good work," and James set about tying up the soft and
comfortable knitted mufflers and wristlets and socks, first in tissue
paper with a ribbon or a bright cord and then with a stouter wrapper of
ordinary paper. He marked on each package what was in it.
"If the people who are doing the sorting and repacking at the Bush
Terminal can know what is in each bundle it is going to help them a
lot," remarked methodical James.
The packing of the candies and cookies took especial care, for they had
to be wrapped in paraffin paper and tightly wedged in the fancy boxes
awaiting them before they could be wrapped with their gay outside
coverings.
"We want them to arrive with some shape still left to them and not
merely a boxful of crumbs," said Ethel Brown earnestly.
Except for the collections of varied presents which they had made for
the sake of the color schemes of their wrappings--an arrangement with
which Helen was much pleased when she came back laden with ribbons and
cord--the gifts were packed according to their kind. Every article of
clothing was wrapped separately and the bundles were labelled, each with
the name of the article within, and then put into one large box. It was
only by great squeezing that the knitted articles were persuaded to go
into the same case.
In another box were the candies and cookies and cakes and breads. The
grocer from whom they had bought the materials for their cooking had
contributed a dozen tins of peaches.
In still another case went the seemingly innumerable small parcels that
held toys or little gifts. Here were the metal pieces and the leather
coin purses and the stuffed animals and the dolls. Doctor Hancock had
sent over a box of raisins and Mrs. Watkins had sent out from town a box
of figs and a few of these goodies with two or three pieces of candy,
went into every article that could be made to serve as a container. Of
this sort were the innumerable fancy bags made of silk bits and of
cretonne and of scraps of velvet which the girls had put together when
other work flagged. Many of the pretty little baskets held a pleasant
amount of sweeties, and the tiny leather travelling bags and the larger
wrist bags of tooled leather were lined with a piece of paraffin paper
enclosing something for sweet-toothed European children.
James's boxes, with those made by the others, held out wonderfully.
"You certainly put in a good week's work with the paste pot," declared
Roger admiringly as he filled the last one with sugar cookies and tied
it with green and red twine to harmonize with its covering of holly
paper.
The Watkinses had sent out their offerings, for they wanted what they
had at home to be packed with the other Club articles, even though they
lived nearer than the rest to the place from which the ship was going
to steam. When this additional collection was prepared and packed it was
found that there were three big packing cases.
"Good for the U. S. C.!" cried the boys as the last nail went into the
last cover.
James, who printed well, painted the address neatly on the tops and
sides, and they all watched with vivid interest the drayman who hauled
them, away, generously contributing his services to the Christmas cause.
After all their hurry it seemed something of a hardship when they were
informed that the sailing of the ship was delayed for several days
because the force of packers, large as it was, could not prepare all the
parcels in time for the tenth of the month.
"The paper says there are more than sixty car-loads of gifts," read
Ethel Blue to her interested family, "and five or six million separate
presents."
"No wonder they're delayed!"
Yet after all they were glad of the delay for the _Jason_ finally sailed
at noon of the fourteenth, and that was Saturday. The Hancocks went in
to New York and over to Brooklyn in the Doctor's car and Mrs. Emerson's
big touring car held all the Mortons and Dorothy and her mother, and
Fraulein and her mother, though it was a tight squeeze.
"The old woman who lived in a shoe must have been on her way to a
Christmas Ship," cried Grandmother when Roger tossed Dicky in "on top of
the heap of Ethels," as he described it and took up his own station on
the running board.
The pier at the Bush Terminal in Brooklyn was already well crowded with
people and motors when the Rosemont party arrived. The Watkinses and
the Hancocks were already there. Freight cars stood at one side, freight
cars empty now of their loads of good cheer. Everybody was laughing and
happy and in a Christmas mood, and the boy band from St. John's Home in
Brooklyn made merry music.
Thanks to Mrs. Morton's acquaintance with Lieutenant-Commander Courtney,
who was in command of the ship, she and her flock had been invited to
hear the speeches of farewell made in the main saloon by representatives
of the city of New York.
Roger led the way to the gang plank which stretched from the pier to the
deck of the huge navy collier.
"Old _Jason_ looks grim enough in his gray war paint," he commented.
"But those great latticed arms of the six cranes look as if he were
trying to play Christmas tree," suggested Mrs. Emerson.
The speeches were full of good will and Christmas cheer. Back on to the
pier went the listeners and then amid the cheers of the throng on the
dock and the whistles of near-by boats and the strains of "The Star
Spangled Banner" from the boys' band and the waving of handkerchiefs and
hats, the huge gray steamer slipped out into the stream and started on
her way across the ocean.
It was when the U. S. C. was making its way back to the automobiles that
a piercing scream attracted their attention.
"That sounds like Fraulein's voice," said Helen, looking about for the
source of the cry.
"_Meine Tochter!_" exclaimed Mrs. Hindenburg at the same moment.
And then they came upon Fraulein, her arms about the neck of a bearded
man, who stroked her hair and cheek with one hand while with the other
he clung to one of the crutches which gave him but an insecure support.
"_Lieber Heinrich!_" cried Mrs. Hindenburg as she caught sight of the
tableau.
"It's--yes, I believe it's Mr. Schuler! Look, Helen, do you think it
is?" whispered Roger.
"It must be," returned Helen. "It's hard to tell with that beard, but
I'm almost sure it is."
"His leg! Oh, Helen, his leg is gone!" lamented Ethel Blue.
The Rosemont party's certainty was relieved by Mrs. Hindenburg who
turned to them, beaming.
"It iss Mr. Schuler; it iss Heinrich," she explained. "_He_ has lost his
leg. What matter? He is here and the _Tochter_ is happy!"
Happy indeed was Fraulein when she turned her tear-stained face toward
the others.
"He has come," she said simply, while the rest crowded around and shook
hands.
It seemed that he had obtained leave to return to America because he had
lost his leg and could fight no more. Yes, he said, Mademoiselle
Millerand had nursed him when his leg was taken off.
The spectators of the moving pictures looked at each other and nodded.
Mademoiselle had sent a message to the Secretary of the United Service
Club, he went on. It was--he took a slip of paper from his pocket book.
"Message received. Answered in person."
The Club members laughed at this whose whole meaning it was clear that
Mr. Schuler did not appreciate.
He had arrived, it seemed, only two hours before, on an Italian boat,
and had heard on the way up from Quarantine of the sailing of the
Christmas Ship and so had crossed to wave a farewell before going out to
Rosemont.
"And here I have found my best fortune," he said over and over again,
his eyes resting fondly on Fraulein's face.