_Mrs. Fountain_: "Tiresome little wretches. Of course we can't expect
them to keep up the self-deception."
_Fountain_: "They'll grow to another. When they're men and women
they'll pretend that Christmas is delightful, and go round giving
people the presents that they've worn their lives out in buying and
getting together. And they'll work themselves up into the notion that
they are really enjoying it, when they know at the bottom of their
souls that they loathe the whole job."
_Mrs. Fountain_: "There you are with your pessimism again! And I had
just begun to feel cheerful about it!"
_Fountain_: "Since when? Since I proposed sending this rubbish back to
the givers with our curse?"
_Mrs. Fountain_: "No, I was thinking what fun it would be if we could
get up a sort of Christmas game, and do it just among relations and
intimate friends."
_Fountain_: "Ah, I wish you luck of it. Then the thing would begin to
have some reality, and just as in proportion as people had the worst
feelings in giving the presents, their best feeling would be hurt in
getting them back."
_Mrs. Fountain_: "Then why did you ever think of it?"
_Fountain_: "To keep from going mad. Come, let's go on with this job
of sorting the presents, and putting them in the stockings and hanging
them up on the tree and laying them round the trunk of it. One thing:
it's for the last time. As soon as Christmas week is over, I shall
inaugurate an educational campaign against the whole Christmas
superstition. It must be extirpated root and branch, and the
extirpation must begin in the minds of the children; we old fools are
hopeless; we must die in it; but the children can be saved. We must
organize and make a house-to-house fight; and I'll begin in our own
house. To-morrow, as soon as the children have made themselves
thoroughly sick with candy and cake and midday dinner, I will appeal
to their reason, and get them to agree to drop it; to sign the
Anti-Christmas pledge; to--"
_Mrs. Fountain_: "Clarence! I have an idea."
_Fountain_: "Not a _bright_ one?"
_Mrs. Fountain_: "Yes, a bright one, even if you didn't originate it.
Have Christmas confined entirely to children--to the very youngest--to
children that believe firmly in Santa Claus."
_Fountain_: "Oh, hello! Wouldn't that leave Jim and Susy out? I
couldn't have _them_ left out."
_Mrs. Fountain_: "That's true. I didn't think of that. Well, say, to
children that either believe or _pretend_ to believe in him. What's
_that_?" She stops at a faint, soft sound on the door. "It's Maggie
with her hands so full she's pushing with her elbow. Come in, Maggie,
come in. _Come_ in! Don't you hear me? Come in, I say! Oh, it isn't
Maggie, of course! It's those worthless, worthless little wretches,
again." She runs to the door calling out, "Naughty, naughty, naughty!"
as she runs. Then, flinging the door wide, with a final cry of
"_Naughty_, I say!" she discovers a small figure on the threshold,
nightgowned to its feet, and looking up with a frightened, wistful
face. "Why, Benny!" She stoops down and catches the child in her arms,
and presses him tight to her neck, and bends over, covering his head
with kisses. "What in the world are you doing here, you poor little
lamb? Is mother's darling walking in his sleep? What did you want, my
pet? Tell mudda, do! Whisper it in mudda's big ear! Can't you tell
mudda? What? Whisper a little louder, love! We're not angry with you,
sweetness. Now, try to speak louder. Is that Santa Claus? No, dearest,
that's just dadda. Santa Claus hasn't come yet, but he will soon.
What? Say it again. _Is_ there any Santa Claus? Why, who else could
have brought all these presents? Presents for Benny and Jim and Susy
and mudda, and seven bath-gowns for dadda. Isn't that funny? Seven!
And one for mudda. What? I can't quite hear you, pet. Are we going to
send the presents back? Why, who ever heard of such a thing? Jim said
so? And Susy? Well, I will settle with them, when I come to them. You
don't want me to? Well, I won't, then, if Benny doesn't want mudda to.
I'll just give them a kiss apiece, pop in their big ears. What? You've
got something for Santa Claus to give them? What? Where? In your crib?
And shall we go and get it? For mudda too? And dadda? Oh, my little
angel!" She begins to cry over him, and to kiss him again. "You'll
break my heart with your loveliness. He wants to kiss you too, dadda."
She puts the boy into his father's arms; then catches him back and
runs from the room with him. Fountain resumes the work of filling the
long stocking he had begun with; then he takes up a very short sock.
He has that in his hand when Mrs. Fountain comes back, wiping her
eyes. "He'll go to sleep now, I guess; he was half dreaming when he
came in here. I should think, when you saw how Benny believed in it,
you'd be ashamed of saying a word against Christmas."
_Fountain_: "Who's said anything against it? I've just been arguing
for it, and trying to convince you that for the sake of little
children like Benny it ought to be perpetuated to the end of the
world. It began with the childhood of the race, in the rejuvenescence
of the spirit."
_Mrs. Fountain_: "Didn't you say that Christmas began with the
pagans? How monstrously you prevaricate!"
_Fountain_: "That was merely a figure of speech. And besides, since
you've been out with Benny, I've been thinking, and I take back
everything I've said or thought against Christmas; I didn't really
think it. I've been going back in my mind to that first Christmas we
had together, and it's cheered me up wonderfully."
_Mrs. Fountain_, tenderly: "Have you, dearest? I _always_ think of it.
If you could have seen Benny, how I left him, just now?"
_Fountain_: "I shouldn't mind seeing him, and I shouldn't care if I
gave a glance at poor old Jim and Susy. I'd like to reassure them
about not sending back the presents." He puts his arm round her and
presses her toward the door.
_Mrs. Fountain_: "How sweet you are! And how funny! And good!" She
accentuates each sentiment with a kiss. "And don't you suppose I felt
sorry for you, making you go round with me the whole afternoon, and
then leaving you to take the brunt of arranging the presents? Now I'll
tell you: _next_ year, I _will_ do my Christmas shopping in July. It's
the only way."
_Fountain_: "No, there's a better way. As you were saying, they don't
have the Christmas things out. The only way is to do our Christmas
shopping the day after Christmas; everything will be round still, and
dog-cheap. Come, we'll begin day after to-morrow."
_Mrs. Fountain_: "We will, we will!"
_Fountain_: "Do you think we will?"
_Mrs. Fountain_: "Well, we'll _say_ we will." They laugh together, and
then he kisses her.
_Fountain_: "Even if it goes on in the same old way, as long as we
have each other--"
_Mrs. Fountain_: "And the children."
_Fountain_: "I forgot the children!"
_Mrs. Fountain_: "Oh, how delightful you are!"