"REMEMBERED"--BY MR. FITS?
Through the night Dick slept as only an active, tired out boy can sleep.
If he woke once he had no recollection of it in the morning.
This, too, despite the fact that it was Christmas, and he had all of a
boy's natural desire to know what the day was to bring him.
Rat-tat-tat! sounded Mrs. Prescott's soft fist on Dick's bedroom door
that morning.
"Wake up, son!" Mrs. Prescott called for the second time.
"I--I'm awake," gasped Dick sleepily.
"Get up, then, son. Have you forgotten that this is Christmas?"
"No'm; I haven't." Dick's feet struck the floor heavily, and he reached
out for his clothing. "Merry Christmas, mother! Is dad there?"
"He's out in the kitchen, raking the fire. Don't you hear him?"
"Yes'm. Say, mother, have you seen your presents yet?"
"I found a handsome gold chain from your father on my bureau."
"Was that all you found?"
"Yes."
"Where did you look?" chuckled Dick.
"Why, on the parlor table, as usual, to be sure."
"Better look again, mother," laughed Dick.
By this time he was nearly dressed. He heard Mrs. Prescott going back
into the parlor.
"I don't find anything else here for me," Mrs. Prescott called back in a
puzzled voice.
"Mother, at this rate, you'll soon be needing specs," called Dick,
throwing open his bedroom door and looking out.
"But I don't see anything else for me, Richard," insisted his mother, as
the boy entered the parlor.
"Look again, mother. Surely, you----"
Then Dick halted suddenly, staring hard at the table, and at the mantel
beyond.
"Why, I left----" he began, and then looked more puzzled. At last he
grinned as the solution of the mystery came into his mind.
"It's just one of dad's jokes," he laughed. "Or else dad forgot. I gave
it to him last night, to lay on the table after you had gone to bed. You
see, mother, this is the first Christmas that I have had money of my own
with which to buy you something really nice. I'll ask dad where it is."
"Who's taking my name in vain?" called Mr. Prescott, as he came through
the hallway and looked in the parlor. "Merry Christmas, Dick."
"Same to you, sir. But, say, what happened to that little package I
handed you for mother?"
"I put it on the table before retiring last night," replied Mr.
Prescott. "It must be there--but it isn't, is it?"
"Honest, now, dad, this isn't a joke, is it?"
"Not on my part, anyway," replied the elder Prescott rather blankly.
"Now, I suppose that you're both playing a little joke on me, trying to
make me curious and impatient," laughed Dick's mother.
"But where is the package?" demanded Dick, exploring all around. His
father lent a helping hand in the search.
"Oh, never mind, Dick, dear," urged his mother. "My surprise is bound to
turn up. It couldn't have walked out of these rooms. Look at your own
package, my boy."
Dick turned to glance eagerly at a not very large box, against which
rested a card bearing his own name. He saw, at a glance, that the box
bore the imprint of one of the Gridley jewelers.
"I can guess!" cried Dick. "I know what's in the box!"
"Suppose you made a wrong guess?" laughed his mother teasingly. "Better
open it and make sure."
Dick picked up the box with trembling fingers.
"Mighty light, whatever it is," he murmured. Then he took off the cover.
"What's this?" choked Dick. "O-o-o-h!"
For all he saw resting in the box was a slip of white paper on which had
been poorly printed, in lead pencil, the words:
"Merry Christmas, Master Butt-in!"
"Some of Dad's fooling," laughed Dick a moment later.
"Not much it isn't," retorted Mr. Prescott, taking a quick step forward.
"Let me see that paper."
Dick handed it over, and his father read the words.
"What on earth does this mean?" he demanded. "What we put in that box
was your first watch, Dick. A silver-cased watch and a very neat
gold-plated chain."
One look at his father and a swift glance at his mother convinced the
boy that they had not been parties to any joke. Yet where were the watch
and chain?
"Who could have left this slip of paper here?" asked Mrs. Prescott.
"Hardly any one outside of the family," replied Mr. Prescott. "I don't
understand this at all."
"And mother's gift, too?" pondered Dick aloud, growing more puzzled
every instant.
"Well, certainly no one else has been in this flat," went on Mrs.
Prescott.
But Dick flew first to one parlor window, and then to the other. Next he
crossed the parlor in two bounds, dashing to his bedroom. He came back,
holding the slip of paper he had taken from the outer door the night
before.
"The two slips look as though they had been printed by the same fellow,
don't they?" inquired the boy.
"Yes," nodded Mr. Prescott. Dick told him about finding the other slip
on the door the evening before.
"But who could play such a mean trick?" insisted Mrs. Prescott.
"The fit-thrower, very likely," Dick answered.
"The fit--what?"
Then Dick hastily recalled to them his adventures of the day before.
"And one parlor window is fastened," Dick went on. "The other has its
catch slipped. The fit-thrower must have climbed up in the night,
slipped the catch with a thin blade and prowled around in here just to
spoil our Christmas."
"It looks that way," nodded Mr. Prescott slowly, his usually calm eyes
filled with disappointment. Then he added, to his wife: "My dear, I'm
very glad, indeed, that I placed your chain on your bureau last night,
instead of leaving it here on the parlor table."
"And poor Dick doesn't get any present!" cried Mrs. Prescott, her eyes
filling a bit. "O Dick, this year we thought we'd please you more by
putting all the money we could spare into one present, so we got your
watch and chain that you've wanted for so long. It's--it's too, too
bad!"
Mrs. Prescott, though seldom given to tears, now sank to the sofa,
pulled out her handkerchief and gave brief vent to her own great
disappointment.
"Never mind, mother; it may turn up all right yet," urged Dick
soothingly, as he rested one arm around her waist. "But if Mr. Fits
really did break in here and take your present, then I feel as though
I'd enjoy trailing him to the end of the earth and seeing him shoved
away behind strong bars!"
"It seems almost fantastic," declared Mr. Prescott, "but I'm afraid,
Dick, that the scoundrel you've told us about really did break in here
on purpose to spoil your Christmas. If he didn't come in person he must
have sent someone."
"Oh, well, anyway," protested Dick, trying to stifle his disappointment,
both on his mother's account and his own, "probably we'll all live to
see more Christmases. But, mother, I'm awfully sorry about the loss of
your gift. Dad thought, too, that I had made a fine choice."
"Indeed you did, young man," remarked Mr. Prescott. "You know, my dear,
that the last time you went to the opera house it was a gala occasion,
and you regretted that you didn't have a really nice fan to carry? Dick
remembered that, and he got you a fan. It was a handsome one. I didn't
believe that a young boy could have as much taste as our son displayed
in choosing that fan. And now--it isn't here!"
Then each tried to cheer the other up, but despite their best efforts it
started in as a gloomy Christmas morning. The Prescotts, while not by
any means poverty stricken, were yet in very moderate circumstances.
Dick knew well enough that his parents would not be able to duplicate
his much-wanted Christmas gift, and that he would have to wait until
some dim time in the future before he could hope to carry a watch of his
own.
So all three went out to the breakfast table. Dick, to do him justice,
thought more of his mother's loss than of his own.
"Are you going to the police about this, my dear?" Mrs. Prescott asked
her husband presently.
"I could," the elder Prescott replied, "but I don't imagine it would do
much good. The stuff that has been taken isn't likely to be restored to
us. I doubt if the police would think it even worth any effort. It isn't
an important robbery, as crime goes. It was just a little trick of
revenge."
"Mr. Fits is revenged all right, then," admitted Dick, with a bitter
smile. "Oh, I only hope that I get a fair chance to pay him back one of
these near days! But, at any rate, my Christmas isn't going to be
spoiled. You have already agreed to my going away on the camping trip
to-morrow, and that is going to be more fun for me than two
Christmases."
"I'm glad you're looking forward so to enjoying your vacation in the
forest," smiled Mrs. Prescott. "It does seem fortunate that you have
such a treat at hand to repay you for your disappointment."
Suddenly Dick looked blank for an instant. Laying down his knife he
employed his right hand in making a frantic thrust into one of his
trousers' pockets. Then he fished up a banknote.
"Thank goodness that is all right," he gasped. "Mr. Fits didn't think to
look for that. It's my five dollars left out of Mrs. Dexter's present,
and is the money that I'm going to pay my share of the camp expenses
with. But, on second thought, I believe I'll drop out of that camping
scheme."
"Why?" asked Mr. Prescott, in a rather sharp, queer voice.
"Because this five dollars will fool Mr. Fits in another way. I can go
to-morrow and get mother another fan like the first one."
Mr. Prescott's eyes flashed proudly for a moment as he answered, a bit
huskily.
"You could do that, of course, young man, but your mother would never
forgive you for cheating yourself out of the one pleasure you want
most."
"Sometimes," spoke Dick gravely, "there's more fun in doing without a
pleasure, when you can find another that is worth more to you."
The tears stood in Mrs. Prescott's eyes. She rose and dropped both arms
around her boy.
"If we absolutely needed your money, Dick," she said, "I know how
cheerfully you would do without your pleasure for our sakes. But this is
a case where your going camping will be worth more to us all than
anything else that five dollars would buy. Besides, think how
disappointed your friends would be over not having their leader."
"I appreciate your mother's feelings so much, lad," went on Mr.
Prescott, "that I forbid you to spend your remaining money on anything
for your mother. She has had her greatest happiness in knowing that you
spent half of the first considerable sum of money you ever had in buying
something for her. That is as far as you can go. Illness alone
preventing, Dick, you'll go camping, and you'll pay your full share into
the camping fund. Besides, I'm glad to say that the indications are that
a much better business year is coming, and that probably we'll soon be
able to have all the things within reason that we may want."
So Christmas, if it ran rather shy on presents in the Prescott
household, was at least a season of extremely good feeling among three
people whose sympathies ran staunchly together.
"The fellows will be waiting to see me," laughed Dick after breakfast.
"So, if I haven't anything to show 'em, at least I've got something to
tell them that will make their hair stand up. And I wonder if Mr. Fits
visited any of their homes last night?"
Laughing, though doubtless he felt quite unlike it, Dick Prescott put on
coat and hat and went out into the Gridley streets.