NEW YEAR’S CALLS.
It was New Year’s Eve, and Mr. Merrick sat with Lucy on his knee, and
his other children around him, in Marcy’s room. The custom of Marcy’s
reading the paper to him every evening had grown into a long chat with
all the children after the reading. From being exclusively occupied
with thoughts of business in his home, Mr. Merrick had ceased to be
exclusively occupied with it even in business hours. His associates on
Wall Street were amazed to see him sometimes smiling to himself, and
then hear him say: “That eldest boy of mine’s a funny rascal!” Or, “My
little niece said a pretty good thing the other day.” Or, “Well, sir,
what do you suppose that youngest girl of mine did yesterday?” and
follow up these introductory remarks with an anecdote of the children.
He was surprised himself to discover how he looked forward to this
hour after dinner with the little band, and how the memory of it
followed it throughout the succeeding day.
This New Year’s Eve Mr. Merrick was telling the children of the custom
of making calls on New Year’s Day, which had been universal in his
youth, and had fallen into disuse.
“Why, I am not old,” he began, but Hugh immediately interrupted him:
“Not old! Well!” he cried, but stopped himself.
“What’s this? Do you think I am old?” asked Mr. Merrick, looking down
at the boy curled up on the rug, pulling Kris Kringle’s ears. “I am not
quite forty-five.”
“Forty-five isn’t old,” said Nellie, with an air of decision. “Fifty is
old though.”
“Five years more of grace,” said Mr. Merrick, laughing. “Nothing like
having the line clearly defined; some people find it harder to settle.
I’ll tell you a secret about old age, children. It is always the next
turn beyond where you have gone, and though you can plainly see others
reach it, you never quite get there yourself.”
“Poor papa; you don’t like to grow old, then,” said Marcy thoughtfully.
“I suppose it’s like being crippled, and thinking you can never run
around again, isn’t it?”
Mr. Merrick bent his head a moment over Lucy’s curls without answering;
when he spoke, it was of something else, and his voice was husky.
“It was a pretty custom going to call on one’s friends to wish them
health and happiness for a new year, but it grew into a caricature and
abuse, and it was better then to stop it. Still I sometimes think I
should like to see the old custom again in the old way.”
“Come, Miss Lucy, bed-time,” said Norah, appearing in the doorway, and
Lucy slipped down, kissed every one good-night, and Marcy three times,
and was gone.
New Year’s Day was damp and disagreeable. Grace had a cold, and
required Norah’s care; Mr. and Mrs. Merrick were at church, and Nellie
and Inez were in Marcy’s room, when Norah came down looking frightened.
“Dear Miss Inez and Miss Nellie,” she said, in great distress, “please
come and help me look for Lucy. Her bonnet and cloak are gone, and she
certainly is nowhere in the house; she must have slipped out unawares.”
The girls started up at this alarming summons, leaving Marcy in an
agony of helpless excitement. The house was ransacked again in vain,
and there was no mistake that she had gone out alone in the streets of
the great city.
“She’ll be lost; she’ll be run over; she’ll be killed!” wailed Inez,
falling on her knees, and burying her face in the coverlid of Marcy’s
bed.
Marcy shook with speechless terror, and Nellie said:
“Stop, Inez, you’ll hurt Marcy. Let’s all say our beads till Uncle Dick
and Aunt Clara come. Julia has gone to the church to find them.”
Meanwhile the cause of this alarm had gone serenely down the street to
the avenue. She had put on her cloak and bonnet unaided, but rubbers
and leggings were beyond her memory, and she sallied forth with no
thought of her thin shoes and unprotected knees. Lucy had listened
with much more attention than any one knew to her father’s stories of
old-fashioned New Year’s calling, and finding herself left quite alone
that morning felt that she had a golden opportunity to revive the
pleasing custom. She had not forgotten to take the new muff, which,
as she said, “Santa Closet” had brought her, and in its depths lay
hidden her mother’s card-case with which she had thoughtfully provided
herself. No one interfered with the small midget as she went her way
past the high brown-stone houses of her street, and turned into Fifth
Avenue, where she selected a dignified mansion, and going up the steps,
put her finger on the electric bell button, and kept it there till her
summons was answered.
The maid who came to the door was a newly arrived Swede, who could not
speak a word of English. She showed the small caller into the parlor,
received the card on her tray, and disappeared without a word.
Mrs. Francis, whom Lucy had selected for this first call, was very
busy getting ready for a journey to Washington, when the card was
brought her. She scanned it impatiently, read “Mrs. Richard Merrick”
wonderingly, and gave a sigh of annoyance.
“I don’t know any Mrs. Richard Merrick,” she exclaimed. “What can have
brought any one on such a day as New Year’s? I suppose I should better
see her.”
She changed her dress very quickly, looked hastily at her slightly
disordered hair, hoping that she should find the parlor shades, drawn,
and went down indisposed to be gracious to her untimely visitor.
As she entered the room she could scarcely believe her eyes. There sat
“Mrs. Merrick” on a stiff Louis XV. chair, upon which she had climbed
with difficulty, her feet sticking straight out before her, and her
eyes shining out very bright from a brown beaver-trimmed bonnet.
“Dear me!” exclaimed Mrs. Francis, and stopped short in amazement.
“Good-morning. I’m making you a New Year’s call,” explained Lucy,
slipping down from her perch in what might be called recklessness when
one considers what a piece of work it was to get up.
“Where did you come from, you provoking little midget?” cried Mrs.
Francis, laughing, yet irritated as she thought of her change of
toilette and the unfinished packing waiting her supervision.
“I’m _not_ a little midget,” cried Lucy indignantly. “I’m Mrs. Mehwick,
and I don’t fink you’re very espectable.” She meant respectful, but it
did not much matter.
“I beg your pardon, Mrs. Merrick,” said Mrs. Francis humbly. “Now I see
you all, but when I came in it was so dark, I really thought you were a
little girl.”
“Never mind,” said Lucy, mollified at once. “I’m ’fwaid I’ve got to go
wight away quick, ’cause I’m going to make more’n a fousand calls.”
“Oh, then, good-by,” said her hostess, opening the heavy front door for
her. “I hope you’ll come again for a longer call.”
“Yes, I will,” said Lucy cheerfully. “Good-by.”
She had made half the long journey down the high steps, one step at a
time, when she remembered something.
“I wis you a happy New Year,” she said, retracing some of the hard
road, then she was gone.
“I wonder if I ought not send a messenger to this address,” said Mrs.
Francis, looking at the card. “I am sure the funny tot has run away.
However, it is too late now.”
Lucy went on down the avenue. She passed many houses which for some
reason did not attract her, and her feet were getting very wet, and
she began to feel tired and thoroughly cold. At last she selected a
house where children’s faces appeared at the window, and tried to ring
the bell. But it was not an electric one, and her small arms could
not manage to pull it. She tapped on the glass for a long time, till
at last some one heard her, and a merry-faced girl came to the door.
She took the card from Lucy, read it, stared at her a moment, and then
burst out laughing.
“Come in, Mrs. Merrick, ma’am. Sure it’s delighted Mrs. Van Alen will
be to see ye.”
This reception cheered Lucy’s soul, and she followed readily when the
maid bade her come up to the sitting-room. Here a motherly-looking
woman came to greet her, and shook the little hand extended to her.
“I am very glad to meet Mrs. Merrick,” she said.
But Lucy’s eyes were riveted on a wonderful doll house in the corner,
before which a little girl and boy were seated staring at her.
“Well, I was Mrs. Mehwick out making New Year’s calls, but I guess I’ll
be Lulie here, if you’ll let me see that pessely beautiful house,” she
said.
“Certainly I will if you will do something for me first,” said Mrs. Van
Alen, “and that is let me take off your wet shoes and stockings, and
rub your little feet nice and warm, and then give you some warm milk to
drink, for you are as cold as a little icicle.”
“Well, all wight,” said Lucy graciously. “I did forgot my wubbers and
leggings.”
“I don’t believe nurse put your things on for you, did she?” asked Mrs.
Van Alen, taking Lucy on her knee, and cuddling her feet in her warm
hand as she held them close to the grate fire.
“Nobody didn’t put ’em on,” said Lucy, “nobody but just me. Gwacie’s
got sore froat, and Nonie’s taking care of her, and mamma’s out, and
Inez and Nellie is in Marcy’s woom, and nobody, not nobody saw me.
Won’t they be s’prised fen they know I’s out?”
“I think it is only too certain,” said Mrs. Van Alen. “Hurry, Katie;
the address is there.” And she gave Katie, who had been waiting, the
card that Lucy had sent up to her.
“Now may I see the baby house?” asked Lucy when Mrs. Van Alen had put
on a pair of her children’s stockings and slippers, and set her down on
the hearth, and she had finished the last drop of her warm milk.
“Yes, indeed. This is Daisy Van Alen, and Harry Van Alen, and,
children, this is little Lulie Merrick come to see you.”
After a few moments of silent staring the three burst into chatter over
the charms of the cooking-stove in the doll-house kitchen, and the
little Van Alens explained it had only just come, being a gift from
Santa Claus delayed in the express.
While Lucy’s adventures had come to such a happy end, the agony at her
home was increasing every moment. The description of the lost child had
been telegraphed to every police station and hospital in the city, but
no result had followed so far. Mrs. Merrick made up her mind that Lucy
was kidnapped, and walked up and down the room, moaning and wringing
her hands, refusing to be comforted. Perhaps it was hardest of all for
Marcy, denied the relief of motion, and doomed to lie perfectly still
through the two long hours of uncertainty, thinking of the dear little
sister whose pretty curly head she might never see again tipped back
against the foot-board of her bed, as she sat in her favorite position
telling her stories. And Mr. Merrick hurried along in fruitless search
from street to street, fearing that Lucy had been run over, and that
if not killed outright, the youngest, like the eldest of his children,
might be crippled.
Into all this agony came hurrying the pleasant, rosy face of Mrs. Van
Alen’s Katie, saying breathlessly:
“I came to tell ye all your little girl was safe at our house, where
she come and knocked at the front-door glass, being too small entirely
to ring the bell, and sint up this card, saying she do be making New
Year’s calls. And Mrs. Van Alen took off her wet shoes and stockings,
and made her drink warm milk, for she was that wet and muddy from the
sloppy streets, and she’ll be playing with our children till you send
for her.”
Norah put her arms around Katie and hugged her, and all the Merricks
would have liked to have followed her example.
When Norah, who went to fetch Lucy home, arrived, she found that young
lady very ill-disposed to leave, being quite happy with the wonderful
baby house, and having so much attention paid to her.
On her return she was hugged nearly breathless by the entire family,
who were themselves so breathless from laughing and sobbing that they
could not scold her.
But poor little Lucy paid for her adventures and forgotten rubbers by
a sharp attack of croup that night, when for three hours her mother and
Norah feared that they had only found her to lose her again forever.
“I don’t believe I’ll make more New Year’s calls, Nonie,” croaked the
poor child hoarsely in the morning. “They’re nice, but they make me
choke too badily. You tell papa I’m glad there’s no more New Year’s
calls, and not to be sorry ’bout they’re being all stopped making them.”