"IT was nothing," said George Edward carelessly, as the family
assembled around him in excited gratitude, and with fulsome praise,
drawn thither by queer little noises down stairs in the library, and
rattlings of window, suggestive of burglars, "I only pulled her in. She
was good, and helped. Do stop talking of it; let's have the stockings.
It's most morning."
"You are a brave boy," cried Hortense's father, uncle Gerald.
"You've saved her life," exclaimed Hortense's mother.
Hortense disengaged herself from her parents, and ran up to her cousin,
putting her arms around him.
"I wasn't good. I wouldn't go up stairs when he told me, and I climbed
up on the window-sill to lean out and see Santa Claus coming, and I
slipped, and the window came down on my fingers, and I rolled around on
the shed and most pulled him off."
"And you needn't try to hide your hand," said uncle Thomas, where they
were visiting, "because we all see that it is bleeding."
At that there was a second rush for the hero of the hour, and the
excited relatives each had to examine for himself and herself George
Edward's thumb torn by the catch of the blind as he pulled himself up.
To save him from further sympathy, his mother seconded his proposition
to have the Christmas stockings then and there.
"I know it is only quarter-past two," she said laughingly, "but these
young folks won't sleep a wink if we send them to bed, nor I fancy will
we elders do much better. Let us all go up to our rooms, give ourselves
just ten minutes to array ourselves in something more festive and
befitting the occasion than"--
"These bath wrappers, mackintoshes, and gossamer waterproofs," finished
somebody in the group for her.
"O, aunt Fannie, aunt Fannie, what a Christmas frolic," cried two of
the other mammas, not waiting for her to finish.
"O, aunt Fannie, aunt Fannie, what fun!" cried the young people.
George Edward swelled with pride at his mother's popularity. "Come on,"
he cried, "see who gets down first."
At that there was a regular stampede, old as well as young taking part,
uncle Thomas only remaining to light the Christmas candles on the
mantel and in the tall candlesticks on the piano underneath the holly
and pine branches.
When the company assembled again in the library it was hard to believe
that it was the same one so lately within those walls, and it was
marvelous how much in the way of adornment could be accomplished in ten
moments by one who gave "his whole mind to it." Some of the neckties
however were tied on the way down stairs, and even boots buttoned in
the same convenient resting-place, but these were only trifling matters
when the general dress-parade was so fine, and nobody noticed any
little discrepancy of attire in another.
The children planted themselves before the row of stockings hanging in
the candlelight, and before the fire on the hearth, now poked up to
its duty, and crackling away in all the proper Christmas jollity. They
pretended not to be excited, but it was pretty hard work.
At last Bamford said, "Hortense is in a dreadful hurry. It's too bad to
keep her waiting. Let's begin."
"So she should," said uncle Thomas, with a twinkle in his eye, "have
hers at once. Hurry up, Hortie, and pull it off the nail. Bamford is so
big I suppose he's going to wait till the last."
Bamford glared at him, and burst out: "Indeed I'm not. We are all
children tonight."
"That's right, my boy," said uncle Thomas approvingly, "only say what
you mean at first, and not get things over other people's shoulders.
Now, one, two, three, see who gets his Christmas stocking first."
It carried the older part of the company back to their young days to
see the scramble that followed, and they laughed until the tears came,
to witness the gale the children were in. It was a Christmas frolic
pure and simple, and pretty soon every soul in the room was engaged in
it; the end was a shower of comfits and bonbons scattered in approved
style after the stockings were declared really empty, yielding nothing
more from vigorous shakings.
"I never was so rich in my life," cried George Edward in a burst of
gratitude, patting his pile of presents. "It was just the jolliest
stocking my Santa Claus ever brought," and he marched up to put his arm
around his mother's neck.
"I don't think I got as much as I did last year when I staid at home,"
remarked Fisher slowly and examining once more his pile. It was an
awful speech to make, and it showed the soul of the boy. But it was
forgiven as a slip of the tongue due to Christmas hilarity.
What a gala day! Nobody thought of being tired till well on into the
night again, and then games and Christmas songs around aunt Ruth's
cottage piano, being over, they one and all began to think of bed, and
to speak even lovingly of the old routine to-morrow.
"I shall help you shovel the snow off, uncle Thomas, in front of the
house," declared Bamford.
"So will I," cried George Edward, coming out of a yawn; "oh dear, I
feel full of candy to my ears. I'd like a good pinch of salt."
"I'm al_most_ sick of caramels," acknowledged Effie, daintily laying
one by one in her bon-bon box to pick out a plain lemon drop. "Wouldn't
it be dreadful to have to eat them always?"
George Edward made a wry face. Then he twisted his mouth up into a
funny little pucker. "Let's make a candy bag and drop it at Tim Ryan's
door to-morrow," he cried.
Tim Ryan was the man who took care of uncle Thomas' furnace, and swept
out his store. He lived two blocks off in a dingy tenement house.
Effie closed her fingers involuntarily on her caramel with old-time
fondness.
"Candy isn't good for poor folks," said Bamford sententiously, and
cramming his mouth full of taffy.
"They get so little, it surprises their digestive apparatus," said
uncle Thomas dryly. "I don't believe our contributions however in that
line will harm them."
Hortense turned a stiff little back upon her precious candy pile, most
of it saved with provident forethought to eat in the following days
when amusements would run low. Could she?
She swallowed very hard an obstacle in her throat, said _no_ in big
letters to her own small mind, then ran over to George Edward, both
hands full of sweets, and said in an odd little way all her own:
"There, that's to make the poor people sick." A shout greeted her; but
her mother kissed her, and Hortense was satisfied.
The baby of the group must not shame them all. So it was quite a
respectable pile that at last lay in a good-sized paper bag tied with
a flaming red ribbon, all ready for the expedition to Tim Ryan's after
breakfast the next morning.
The candy did not injure the Ryans big and little, we will only say,
but they came out of the feast with blooming sticky faces, and hearts
full of gratitude toward the "Allen childer."
And then in two days they were all, that merry company, back once more
in their homes, happy in the memory of the good time they had had, and
full of pluck and enthusiasm for school and home life.
It was about this time that Jared Lewis, a rather dull boy in No. 9,
the room that held George Edward in school-hours, broke out one day
in the reading class with a new idea before them all. Jared was of a
somewhat dull turn of mind, I have said. Certainly not a brilliant boy.
But he held to a thought with wonderful pertinacity that once got into
his mind; nothing could shake it.
They happened in the reading upon an abridged version of the Eastern
legend of St. George and the Dragon, woven into a touching little
English tale. We all know the stirring legend of the patron saint of
England, Germany, and Venice, and of all chivalrous soldiers in the
army battling against cruelty and injustice. It makes the blood leap
in one's veins to read or to tell it, and one longs to grasp the good
sword and go out to fight in the great world with the noble army of
martyrs who enroll themselves on the side of the weak and suffering.
There was many a sober little face, and one or two who pretended the
light was bad for their eyes when Jared had stumbled through his
rendition of the closing part. But he was so full of his new idea that
his countenance was radiant and he cried in a loud assured tone, "Why,
he goes to our school--he's here to-day."
"Who?" cried the teacher, and the children thrilled too suddenly, began
to titter nervously.
"George Edward Allen," said Jared confidently. "He's Saint George, and
he's always fighting a Dragon. He knocked a boy down yesterday for
yanking a cat's tail."
The children stopped laughing, and, sharing his enthusiasm, nodded
"yes, yes," to Jared. George Edward on the back seat studying his
geography raised his head at the commotion. His face turned as red as
fire and he made as though he would shoot his book through the air at
the speaker's head. Jared went on in admiration more forcible than
elegant: "He's always for the littlest dog in the fight, against the
big fellows. I'd like to know if that isn't St. George."
[Illustration: TOMB OF FERDINAND AND ISABELLA.]