engaged in a profitable business for fifteen years or so and he has
amassed a considerable fortune. Certainly he deserves it, for he has
been at it night and day and has sacrificed many things to it. He has
kept the straight road despite all truant beckoning. But his too close
application has cramped his soul. His organization and his profits,
his balance sheets and output have seemed to become the whole of him.
But for once I found that B---- was in no hurry and we talked more
intimately than in several years. I discovered soon that his hard
busyness was no more than a veneer and that his freer self still
lived, but in confinement. At least he felt the great lack in his
life, which had been given too much to the piling up of things, to the
sustaining of position--getting and spending. Yet he could see no end.
He was caught in the rich man's treadmill, only less horrible than
that of the poor man with its cold and hunger.
Afterwards, when he had gone, I fell into a survey of certain other
men of my acquaintance. Some few of them are rich also, and they heap
up for themselves a pile of material things until they stifle in the
midst. They run swiftly and bitterly from one appointment to another
in order that they may add a motor to their stable. If they lie awake
at night, they plan a new confusion for the morrow. They are getting
and spending always. They have been told many times that some day they
will die and leave their wealth, yet they labor ceaselessly to
increase their pile. It is as if one should sweat and groan to load a
cart, knowing that soon it goes off on another road. And yet not one
of these persons will conceive that I mean him. He will say that
necessity keeps him at it. Or he will cite his avocations to prove he
is not included. But he plays golf fretfully with his eye always on
the score. He drives his motor furiously to hold a schedule. Yet in
his youth many of these prosperous fellows learned to play upon a
fiddle, and they dreamed on college window-seats. They had time for
friendliness before they became so busy holding this great world by
its squirming tail.
Or perhaps they are not so _very_ wealthy. If so, they work the
harder. To support their wives and children? By no means. To support
the pretense that they are really wealthy, to support a neighbor's
competition. It is this competition of house and goods that keeps
their noses on the stone. Expenditure always runs close upon their
income, and their days are a race to keep ahead.
I was thinking rather mournfully of the hard and unnecessary condition
of these persons, when I fell asleep. And by chance, these unlucky
persons, my boots and my cobbler, even the oboe mender, all of them
somehow got mixed in my dream.
It seems that there was a cobbler once, long ago, who kept a shop
quite out of the common run and marvelous in its way. It stood in a
shadowy city over whose dark streets the buildings toppled, until
spiders spun their webs across from roof to roof. And to this cobbler
the god Mercury himself journeyed to have wings sewed to his flying
shoes. High patronage. And Atalanta, too, came and held out her swift
foot for the fitting of a running sandal. But perhaps the cobbler's
most famous customer was a well-known giant who ordered of him his
seven-league boots. These boots, as you may well imagine, were of
prodigious size, and the giant himself was so big that when he left
his order he sat outside on the pavement and thrust his stockinged
foot in through the window for the cobbler to get his measure.
[Illustration]
I was laughing heartily at this when I observed that a strange
procession was passing by the cobbler's door. First there was a man
who was burdened with a great tinsel box hung with velvet, in which
were six plush chairs. After him came another who was smothered with
rugs and pictures. A third carried upon his back his wife, a great fat
creature, who glittered with jewels. Behind him he dragged a dozen
trunks, from which dangled brocades and laces. This was all so absurd
that in my mirth I missed what followed, but it seemed to be a long
line of weary persons, each of whom staggered under the burden of an
unworthy vanity.
As I laughed the night came on--a dull hot night of summer. And in the
shop I saw the cobbler on his bench, an old and wrinkled man like a
dwarf in a fairy tale. There was a sign now above his door. "Boots for
Runaways," it read. About its margin were pictures of many kinds of
boots--a shoe of a child who runs to seek adventure, Atalanta's
sandals, and sturdy boots that a man might wear.
And now I saw a man coming in the dark with tired and drooping head.
In both hands he clutched silver pieces that he had gathered in the
day. When he was opposite the cobbler's shop, the great sign caught
his eye. He wagged his head as one who comes upon the place he seeks.
"Have you boots for me?" he asked, with his head thrust in the door.
"For everyone who needs them," was the cobbler's answer.
"My body is tired," the man replied, "and my soul is tired."
"For what journey do you prepare?" the cobbler asked.
The man looked ruefully at his hands which were still tightly clenched
with silver pieces.
"Getting and spending," said the cobbler slowly.
"It has been my life." As the man spoke he banged with his elbow on
his pocket and it rattled dully with metal.
"Do you want boots because you are a coward?" the cobbler asked. "If
so, I have none to sell."
"A coward?" the man answered, and he spoke deliberately as one in deep
thought. "All my life I have been a coward, fearing that I might not
keep even with my neighbors. Now, for the first time, I am brave."
He kicked off his shoe and stretched out his foot. The cobbler took
down from its nail his tape line and measured him. And the twilight
deepened and the room grew dark.
And the man went off cheerily. And with great strides he went into the
windy North. But to the South in a slow procession, I saw those others
who bore the weary burden of their wealth, staggering beneath their
load of dull possessions--their opera boxes, their money-chests and
stables, their glittering houses, their trunks of silks and laces, and
on their backs their fat wives shining in the night with jewels.
On Hanging a Stocking at Christmas.
As Christmas is, above all, a holiday for children, it is proper in
its season to consider with what regard they hold its celebration. But
as no one may really know the secrets of childhood except as he
retains the recollection of his own, it is therefore in the well of
memory that I must dip my pen. The world has been running these many
years with gathering speed like a great wheel upon a hill, and I must
roll it backward to the heights to see how I fared on the night and
day of Christmas.
I can remember that for a month before the day I computed its
distance, not only in hours and minutes but even in seconds, until the
answer was scrawled across my slate. Now, when I multiply 24 x 60 x
60, the resulting 86,400 has an agreeable familiarity as the amount I
struck off each morning. At bedtime on Christmas Eve I had still
36,000 impatient seconds yet to wait, for I considered that Christmas
really started at six o'clock in the morning.
There was, of course, a lesser celebration on Christmas Eve when we
hung our stockings. There were six of them, from mother's long one to
father's short one. Ours, although built on womanish lines, lacked the
greater length and they were, consequently, inferior for the purpose
of our greed; but father's were woefully short, as if fashioned to the
measure of his small expectancy. Even a candy cane came peeping from
the top, as if curiosity had stirred it to look around.
Finally, when the stockings were hung on the knobs of the mantel, we
went up the dark stairs to bed. At the landing we saw the last glimmer
from the friendly sitting-room. The hall clock ticked solemnly in the
shadow below with an air of firmness, as much as to say that it would
not be hurried. Fret as we might, those 36,000 seconds were not to be
jostled through the night.
In the upper hall we looked from a window upon the snowy world.
Perhaps we were too old to believe in Santa Claus, but even so, on
this magic night might not a skeptic be at fault--might there not be a
chance that the discarded world had returned to us? Once a year,
surely, reason might nod and drowse. Perhaps if we put our noses on
the cold glass and peered hard into the glittering darkness, we might
see the old fellow himself, muffled to his chin in furs, going on his
yearly errands. It was a jingling of sleigh bells on the street that
started this agreeable suspicion, but, alas, when the horse appeared,
manifestly by his broken jogging gait he was only an earthly creature
and could not have been trusted on the roof. Or the moon, sailing
across the sky, invited the thought that tonight beyond the accustomed
hour and for a purpose it would throw its light across the roofs to
mark the chimneys.
Presently mother called up from the hall below. Had we gone to bed?
Reluctantly now we began to thumb the buttons. Off came our clothes,
both shirts together tonight for better speed in dressing. And all the
night pants and drawers hung as close neighbors, one within the other,
with stockings dangling at the ends, for quick resumption. We slipped
shivering into the cold sheets. Down below the bed, by special
permission, stood the cook's clock, wound up tight for its explosion
at six o'clock.
Then came silence and the night....
Presently, all of a sudden, Brrr--! There arose a deafening racket in
the room. Had the reindeer come afoul of the chimney? Had the loaded
sleigh crashed upon the roof? Were pirates on the stairs? We awoke
finally, and smothered the alarm in the pillows. A match! The gas! And
now a thrill went through us. Although it was still as black as ink
outside, at last the great day of all the year had come.
It was, therefore, before the dawn that we stole downstairs in our
stockings--dressed loosely and without too great precision in our
hurry. Buttons that lay behind were neglected, nor did it fret us if a
garment came on twisted. It was a rare tooth that felt the brush this
morning, no matter how it was coddled through the year.
We carried our shoes, but this was not entirely in consideration for
the sleeping house. Rather, our care proceeded from an enjoyment of
our stealth; for to rise before the dawn when the lamps were still
lighted on the street and issue in our stockings, was to taste
adventure. It had not exactly the zest of burglary, although it was of
kin: nor was it quite like the search for buried treasure which we
played on common days: yet to slink along the hallway on a pitch-black
Christmas morning, with shoes dangling by the strings, was to realize
a height of happiness unequaled.
Quietly we tiptoed down the stairs on whose steep rail we had so often
slid in the common light of day, now so strangely altered by the
shadows. Below in the hall the great clock ticked, loudly and with
satisfaction that its careful count was done and its seconds all
despatched. There was a gurgle in its throat before it struck the
hour, as some folk clear their throats before they sing.
As yet there was not a blink of day. The house was as black as if it
practiced to be a cave, yet an instinct instructed us that now at
least darkness was safe. There were frosty patterns on the windows of
the sitting-room, familiar before only on our bedroom windows. Here in
the sitting-room arose dim shapes which probably were its accustomed
furniture, but which to our excited fancy might be sleds and
velocipedes.
We groped for a match. There was a splutter that showed red in the
hollow of my brother's hand.
After the first glad shock, it was our habit to rummage in the general
midden outside our stockings. If there was a drum upon the heap,
should not first a tune be played--softly lest it rouse the house? Or
if a velocipede stood beside the fender, surely the restless creature
chafed for exercise and must be ridden a few times around the room. Or
perhaps a sled leaned against the chair (it but rested against the
rigors of the coming day) and one should feel its runners to learn
whether they are whole and round, for if flat and fixed with screws it
is no better than a sled for girls with feet tucked up in front. On
such a sled, no one trained to the fashions of the slide would deign
to take a belly-slammer, for the larger boys would cry out with scorn
and point their sneering mittens.
The stocking was explored last. It was like a grab-bag, but glorified
and raised to a more generous level. On meaner days shriveled
grab-bags could be got at the corner for a penny--if such mild fortune
fell your way--mere starvelings by comparison--and to this shop you
had often trotted after school when learning sat heaviest on your
soul. If a nickel had accrued to you from the sale of tintags, it was
better, of course, to lay it out in pop; but with nothing better than
a penny, there was need of sharp denial. How you lingered before the
horehound jar! Coltsfoot, too, was but a penny to the stick and
pleased the palate. Or one could do worse than licorice. But finally
you settled on a grab-bag. You roused an old woman from her knitting
behind the stove and demanded that a choice of grab-bags be placed
before you. Then, like the bearded phrenologist at the side-show of
the circus, you put your fingers on them to read their humps. Perhaps
an all-day sucker lodged inside--a glassy or an agate--marbles best
for pugging--or a brass ring with a ruby.
Through the year these bags sufficed, but the Christmas stocking was a
deeper and finer mystery. In the upper leg were handkerchiefs from
grand-mother--whose thoughts ran prudentially on noses--mittens and a
cap--useful presents of duller purpose--things that were due you
anyway and would have come in the course of time. But down in the
darker meshes of the stocking, when you had turned the corner of the
heel, there were the sweet extras of life--a mouth-organ, a baseball,
a compass and a watch.
Some folk have a Christmas tree instead of hanging their stockings,
but this is the preference of older folk rather than the preference of
children. Such persons wish to observe a child's enjoyment, and this
is denied them if the stocking is opened in the dawn. Under a pretense
of instruction they sit in an absurd posture under the tree; but they
do no more than read the rules and are blind to the obscurer uses of
the toys. As they find occasion, the children run off and play in a
quieter room with some old and broken toy.
Who can interpret the desires of children? They are a race apart from
us. At times, for a moment, we bring them to attention; then there is
a scurry of feet and they are gone. Although they seem to sit at table
with us, they are beyond a frontier that we cannot pass. Their words
are ours, but applied to foreign uses. If we try to follow their
truant thoughts, like the lame man of the story we limp behind a
shooting star. We bestow on them a blind condescension, not knowing
how their imagination outclimbs our own. And we cramp them with our
barren learning.
I assert, therefore, that it is better to find one's presents in the
dawn, when there is freedom. In all the city, wherever there are
lights, children have taken a start upon the day. Then, although the
toys are strange, there is adventure in prying at their uses. If one
commits a toy to a purpose undreamed of by its maker, it but rouses
the invention to further discovery. Once on a dark and frosty
Christmas morning, I spent a puzzling hour upon a coffee-grinder--a
present to my mother--in a delusion that it was a rare engine destined
for myself. It might have been a bank had it possessed a slot for
coins. A little eagle surmounted the top, yet this was not a
sufficient clue. The handle offered the hope that it was a music-box,
but although I turned it round and round, and noises issued from its
body quite foreign to my other toys, yet I could not pronounce it
music. With sails it might have been a windmill. I laid it on its side
and stood it on its head without conclusion. It was painted red, and
that gave it a wicked look, but no other villainy appeared. To this
day as often as I pass a coffee-grinder in a grocer's shop I turn its
handle in memory of my perplexing hour. And even if one remains
unschooled to the uses of the toys, their discovery in the dawn while
yet the world lies fast asleep, is far beyond their stale performance
that rises with the sun.
And yet I know of an occurrence, to me pathetic, that once attended
such an early discovery. A distant cousin of mine--a man really not
related except by the close bond of my regard--was brought up many
years ago by an uncle of austere and miserly nature. Such goodness as
this uncle had once possessed was cramped into a narrow and smothering
piety. He would have dimmed the sun upon the Sabbath, could he have
reached up tall enough. He had no love in his heart, nor mirth. My
cousin has always loved a horse and even in his childhood this love
was strong. And so, during the days that led up to Christmas when
children speculate upon their desires and check them on their fingers,
he kept asking his uncle for a pony. At first, as you might know, his
uncle was stolid against the thought, but finally, with many winks
and nods--pleasantries beyond his usual habit--he assented.
Therefore in the early darkness of the day, the child came down to
find his gift. First, probably, he went to the stable and climbing on
the fence he looked through the windows for an unaccustomed form
inside the stalls. Next he looked to see whether the pony might be
hitched to the post in front of the house, in the manner of the family
doctor. The search failing and being now somewhat disturbed with
doubt, he entered his nursery on the slim chance that the pony might
be there. The room was dark and he listened on the sill, if he might
hear him whinny. Feeling his way along the hearth he came on nothing
greater than his stocking which was tied to the andiron. It bulged and
stirred his curiosity. He thrust in his hand and coming on something
sticky, he put his fingers in his mouth. They were of a delightful
sweetness. He now paused in his search for the pony and drawing out a
huge lump of candy he applied himself. But the day was near and he had
finished no more than half, when a ray of light permitted him to see
what he ate. It was a candy horse--making good the promise of his
uncle. This and a Testament had been stuffed inside his stocking. The
Testament was wrapped in tissue, but the horse was bitten to the
middle. It had been at best but a poor substitute for what he wanted,
yet his love was so broad that it included even a sugar horse; and
this, alas, he had consumed unknowing in the dark. And even now when
the dear fellow tells the story after these many years have passed,
and comes to the sober end with the child crying in the twilight of
the morning, I realize as not before that there should be no Christmas
kept unless it be with love and mirth.
It was but habit that we hung our stockings at the chimney--the piano
would have done as well--for I retain but the slightest memory of a
belief in Santa Claus: perhaps at most, as I have hinted, a far-off
haze of wonder while looking through the window upon the snowy sky--at
night a fancied clatter on the roof, if I lay awake. And therefore in
a chimney there was no greater mystery than was inherent in any hole
that went off suspiciously in the dark. There was a fearful cave
beneath the steps that mounted from the rear to the front garret. This
was wrapped in Cimmerian darkness--which is the strongest pigment
known--and it extended from its mouth beyond the furthest stretch of
leg. To the disillusioned, indeed, this cave was harmless, for it
merely offset the lower ceiling of the bathroom below; yet to us it
was a cave unparalleled. Little by little we ventured in, until in
time we could sit on the snug joists inside with the comfortable
feeling of pirates. Presently we hit on the device of hanging a row of
shining maple-syrup tins along the wall outside where they were caught
by the dusty sunlight, which was thus reflected in on us. By the light
of these dim moons the cave showed itself to be the size of a library
table. And here, also, we crouched on dark and cloudy days when the
tins were in eclipse, and found a dreadful joy when the wind scratched
upon the roof.
In the basement, also, there was a central hall that disappeared
forever under an accumulation of porch chairs and lumber. Here was no
light except what came around two turns from the laundry. Even Annie
the cook, a bold venturesome person, had never quite penetrated to a
full discovery of this hallway. A proper approach into the darkness
was on hands and knees, and yet there were barrels and boxes to
overcome. Therefore, as we were bred to these broader discoveries, a
mere chimney in the sitting-room, which arose safely from the fenders,
was but a mild and pleasant tunnel to the roof.
And if a child believes in Santa Claus and chimneys, and that his
presents are stored in a glittering kingdom across the wintry hills,
he will miss the finer pleasure of knowing that they are hidden
somewhere in his own house. For myself, I would not willingly forego
certain dizzy ascents to the topmost shelves of the storeroom, where,
with my head close under the ceiling and my foot braced against the
wall, I have examined suspicious packages that came into the house by
stealth. As likely as not, at the ringing of the door-bell, we had
been whisked into a back room. Presently there was a foot sounding on
the stairs and across the ceiling. Then we were released. But
something had arrived.
Thereafter we found excitement in rummaging in unlikely places--a wary
lifting of summer garments laid away, for a peek beneath--a journey on
one's stomach under the spare-room bed--a pilgrimage around the cellar
with a flaring candle--furtive explorations of the storeroom. And when
we came to a door that was locked--Aha! Here was a puzzle and a
problem! We tried every key in the house, right side up and upside
down. Bluebeard's wife, poor creature,--if I read the tale
aright,--was merely seeking her Christmas presents around the house
before the proper day.
The children of a friend of mine, however, have been brought up to a
belief in Santa Claus, and on Christmas Eve they have the pretty
custom of filling their shoes with crackers and scraps of bread by way
of fodder for the reindeer. When the shoes are found empty in the
morning, but with crumbs about--as though the hungry reindeer spilled
them in their haste--it fixes the deception.
But if one must have a Christmas tree, I recommend the habit of some
friends of mine. In front of their home, down near the fence, is a
trim little cedar. T---- connects this with electric wires and hangs
on it gayly colored lamps. Every night for a week, until the new year,
these lights shine across the snow and are the delight of travelers on
the road. The Christmas stars, it seems, for this hallowed season
have come to earth.
We gave the family dinner. On my mother fell the extra labor, but we
took the general credit. All the morning the relatives arrived--thin
and fat. But if one of them bore a package or if his pockets sagged,
we showed him an excessive welcome. Sometimes there was a present
boxed and wrapped to a mighty bulk. From this we threw off thirty
papers and the bundle dwindled, still no gift appeared. In this lay
the sweetness of the jest, for finally, when the contents were
shriveled to a kernel, in the very heart of it there lay a bright
penny or common marble.
All this time certain savory whiffs have been blowing from the
kitchen. Twice at least my mother has put her head in at the door to
count the relatives. And now when the clock on the mantel strikes
two--a bronze Lincoln deliberating forever whether he will sign the
Emancipation Bill--the dining-room door is opened.