Coolidge Susan
Who ate the pink sweetmeat?
“And I never saw him!” said the patroncito reproachfully, as he looked at them. “Oh, why didn’t you wake me, Don Cherokee Sam?”
“I didn’t dar to do it, patroncito,” explained Sam. “’Twasn’t safe when he told me not to.”
He watched the patroncito anxiously as he took the stockings down. But he need have had no fear. As their contents rolled out on the deerskin the patroncito uttered a cry of delight.
A handful of garnets, bits of broken agate, a shivered topaz, shining cubes of iron pyrites, picked up on otherwise fruitless prospects by San Nicolas; a tanned white weasel-skin purse, and ornaments of young bucks’ prongs, patiently carved by that good saint on winter evenings. Certainly, never before, with all his silk and silver, had the petted patroncito received gifts so prized as these.
“Never mind about breakfast,” he said imperiously, as he gathered them up. “Take me to the plaza right away.”
The half-breed humbly complied. But scarcely had they emerged from the granite gateway of the Shut-in when they were met by a party from the plaza, headed by the patron himself, searching, in great trouble, for the wanderer. They had been abroad all night. Happily, Cherokee Sam remembered the admonitions of San Nicolas over night.
“Patron,” he said, haughtily, as he led the patroncito forward, “I bring you a Christmas gift.”
Then, as Cherokee Sam afterwards described it, “there was a jabbering and a waving of hands by them thar Mexicans.” And he, turning, strode back to his cabin, and his unfinished breakfast. Still his resentment rankled. But it vanished later on that day.
Once more the gray burro ambled up the gulch bearing the dwarfish mayordomo, but this time on a mission of peace. After him came a burrada (pack-train) well laden, and drew up before the door of the astonished Cherokee Sam. With uncovered head and courtesy profound, the mayordomo stood before him and asked would Don Cherokee Sam indicate where he would have the Christmas gifts, sent by the patroncito, stored.
“In the cabin,” replied Sam, glancing at the loaded burros in dismay, “if it will hold ’em. I ain’t got nowhars else.”
The mayordomo waved his wand to the attendant packers, and in a moment the cabin was filled with box, bag, and bale, closely piled. Assuredly Don Cherokee Sam had luxuries of life to last until Christmas came again.
CHERRY PIE
Yet it isn’t such a bad house,” said little Elsie Perch to herself, as she looked upward at the tall tenement-house in which she lived; “to be sure, there’s a good many folks in it – Grandpa ’n Grandma Perch, ’n Grandpa ’n Grandma Finney, ’n uncle John’s folks, ’n us – ’n her house hasn’t got anybody in it but them– but it’s a good enough house. I ain’t going to cry because that little girl that goes to Sunday-school with me has nicer clothes ’n lives in a nicer house. She hasn’t got any cherry-tree, anyway!”
Elsie spoke these last words with an air of great triumph, for, sure enough, right in the back yard of Elsie’s home stood a great, generous cherry-tree; and though as she looked at it now, in the gray solemnity of a December twilight, she had to use considerable imagination to recall the luscious red fruit it had borne last summer, and the glossy richness of the green leaves, under whose shade she had been cool and happy when many of her neighbors were sweltering in the August heats; still Elsie was quite equal to it, especially as to-morrow was Christmas day. For there was to be a splendid Christmas dinner at Grandma Perch’s, on the lower floor, and uncle John and his family, and Elsie’s father and mother, and Grandma and Grandpa Finney were all to be at the dinner. The cherry-pie was always the crowning glory of Christmas dinner with the Perch family. To be sure, it was made of canned cherries; but then, couldn’t Grandma Perch can cherries so they tasted just as nice in winter as in summer? And nobody else knew so well just how much sugar to put in, nor how to make such flaky, delicious pie-crust.
All these things occurred pleasantly to Elsie as she ran up and down the walk in her warm hood, and cloak, and mittens. There was a shade of repining, to be sure, as she thought of the velvet clothes, and various other privileges belonging to the “girl who went to Sunday-school;” but this grew less as she ran, and especially as she looked down to the square below and saw how much more squalid and miserable the houses looked down there, she felt a thankful glow that her home was better, and that her papa and uncle John never came home in a cruel, drunken fury like the fathers of the children down there.
“Pretty good times come Christmas!” said Elsie aloud, in a burst of joy, hopping merrily up and down, and forgetting her discontent. “Why, there’s Millie!” and she ran across the street to a little girl who had just come out of the tall house opposite. Millie looked very forlorn.
“What’s the matter?” asked Elsie.
“Mamma says I can’t have any Christmas present,” said Millie, beginning to sob wretchedly; “she was expecting some work, but it didn’t come, and the rent’s overdue, and – and I can’t have a thing!”
“That’s too bad,” said Elsie; “I’m going to have lots – and we are going to have cherry-pie for dinner.”
“Oh, my!” cried Millie, drying her tears to contemplate Elsie’s future; “cherry-pie! It must be so good! It sounds good.”
“Didn’t you ever have any cherry-pie?”
Millie shook her head.
“Oh, it’s splendid!”
Millie’s eyes shone.
Just then some of the blue, pinched, half-dressed little children, who lived below, came running up the walk. There were two boys whom the children knew to be a certain Sammie and Luke, and two girls whose names were Lizy and Sally. They were shouting and racing, but they stopped to listen to the conversation. The word “Christmas” loosened their tongues at once. “I’m going to our Sunday-school to a Christmas-tree,” said Sammie.
“I can’t go to Sunday-school,” said Lizy, ready to cry, “I hain’t got no clo’es.”
Elsie’s heart reproached her anew for her covetous, ungrateful thoughts of a few moments before. Her self-reproaches grew stronger still when Millie remarked to the little crowd of listeners, as though proud of the acquaintance of so distinguished an individual, that Elsie Perch was going to have cherry-pie for her Christmas dinner.
“Oh, my!” “Is she?” “Ain’t that fine!” cried one and all, with enthusiasm.
“Yes,” rejoined Elsie, her heart swelling with pride, “my grandma always has a cherry-pie for Christmas.”
Silence fell on the little group, and in the midst of this silence, a light footfall was heard pattering along the side street, and there burst into view a little girl – little Maude from the street above – the very little girl of whom Elsie had been envious. She wore a broad gray hat, with a lovely Titian red feather, and a Titian red velvet Mother Hubbard cloak, and velvet leggings to match, and carried a lovely muff, while by a silken cord she led a dear little white dog, in a buff-and-silver blanket.
“Oh,” cried this beautiful little creature, bounding toward Elsie, “there you are! I saw you come around here after Sunday-school, and I’ve been hunting for you. See my little new dog! It’s a Christmas present, only it came yesterday. Is this where you live?” She looked shrinkingly up and down the narrow street, and at the squalid buildings in the distance. “And are these your brothers and sisters?”
Elsie laughed, and said no.
“What do you think?” began Lizy seriously, her large, wistful eyes, and chalk-white face, lending a strange pathos to her funny little speech, “this girl here,” and she pointed to Elsie, “is going to have cherry-pie.”
“Is she?” said Maude; “that is nice. I like cherry-pie, but we don’t have any in winter.”
“We do,” said Elsie proudly. “My grandma puts up lots of cans of cherries, when our cherry-tree bears, and Christmas-time we have cherry-pie, and sometimes, when we have company, we have cherry-sauce for tea.”
“I’d like some cherry-pie,” said Maude imperiously. “Little girl, give us some of your cherry-pie?”
The hungry group of ragged boys and girls gathered about with Maude. She was beginning some sort of an explanation, that the cherry-pie was her grandma’s, and not hers, when a bell rang in the distance, and Maude darted away.
“That’s for me,” she cried, hastening away, and pulling the buff-and-silver-coated doggie after her. “Good-by, little girl! I wish I could have some of that cherry-pie.”
She tripped daintily away down the side street, and the children watched her until she was out of sight. “I ’spose,” said Luke, with a sigh, “I ’spose she has dinner every day.”
“I have dinner every day,” cried Elsie.
“Do you?” said Lizy, devouring this favored child of fortune with her great, wistful eyes. “I don’t. Oh! I’d like some of that cherry-pie.”
Just then Elsie saw her father coming up the street and ran to meet him, while the other children started for their homes in the square below.
The next morning there was so much excitement that Elsie never thought of the poor children on the next square, nor of Millie, nor of Maude, until the Christmas dinner was nearly over and the cherry-pie came on.
“Oh!” she cried, “you don’t know, grandma, how nice everybody thinks it is that we can have cherry-pie.”
“Do they?” said grandma kindly. “Well, I do hope the pie’s turned out well.”
Elsie noticed that some of the pie was left after all had been served. A bright idea darted into her head, and she was out of the room in a trice. On went cloak and hood, and she dashed around the corner to see if she could find Maude. Yes, there she was, playing with her blanketed doggie on the broad sidewalk.
“Come!” cried Elsie, catching hold of Maude’s hand. “Come quick! There’s lots of cherry-pie! Come and have some!”
As they neared Millie’s house they met that little girl on the walk, and she was easily persuaded to join the party.
“Now,” said Elsie, running on in advance, “let’s get Sammie and Lizy, and those other ones.”
They flew down the street, and soon found the objects of their search. The watchword, “cherry-pie,” was sufficient, and in the twinkling of an eye, they were at Grandma Perch’s door. Then, for the first time, Elsie felt a little misgiving. Perhaps there wasn’t pie enough to go round. And what would grandma say?
But she marched bravely in, her eager little crowd of companions at her heels.
“See here, grandma,” she said, “here are a lot of children who want some cherry-pie.”
“Dear heart!” exclaimed grandma, in dismay, looking down at the motley group with lifted hands. “Why, Elsie! there isn’t pie enough for more’n three little pieces, but, bless ’em!” for the look on some of those pinched, hungry faces went to grandma’s heart, in the abundance and mirth of her own Christmas day, “I’ll have a cherry-pie made for ’em in less’n no time. There’s pie-crust in my pan, and the oven is hot; just go out and play, children, and I’ll call you in presently.”
And “presently” they were called in to behold a mammoth cherry-pie, baked in a tin pan, and they had just as much as was good for them, even to Maude’s doggie. Maude left first, for she wasn’t hungry, and, besides, she knew that her mamma would worry about her long absence; but the little starved boys and girls from “the square below,” didn’t go for a long time. To tell the truth, grandma didn’t stop at giving them cherry-pie. They had some turkey, and some mashed potato, and turnip, and some hot coffee, besides.
“Tain’t often I can give,” said grandma afterward. “But we’ve been prospered, and I can’t bear to see anybody hungry on Christmas day.”
After they had all gone, Elsie sat with her heart full of quiet happiness, rocking in her little rocking-chair. She was meditating vaguely on the envy she had felt toward Maude, and her general feeling of discontent. At last she spoke to grandma, who happened to be sitting beside her.
“Most everybody has things some other folks don’t have,” she remarked, rather vaguely.
Grandma understood her.
“Dear heart!” she cried again, for that was her pet name for Elsie. “That’s right! There’s mercies for everybody, if they’d only reckon ’em up – and Christmas day’s a first-rate time to remember it!”
BERTIE’S RIDE
Here’s a nice state of things! We have run short of candles for the Tree, and of course the shops will be shut to-morrow, and the day after. What is to be done? Almost anything else might have been managed in some way, but a Christmas Tree in semi-darkness – can anything more dismal be imagined?” And Alice Chetwynd’s usually bright face looks nearly as gloomy as the picture she has called up.
“What’s the row?” cries schoolboy Bertie, planting two good-natured, if somewhat grubby hands on his sister’s shoulders. “Alice in the dumps? That is something quite new. Can’t you cut some big candles in two and stick them about? Here’s Cousin Mildred – ask her. She’ll be sure to hit upon something.”
“No, don’t bother her,” whispers Alice, giving him a warning pat, as a pretty girl some years older than themselves enters the room. “She is so disappointed at getting no letter again to-day – I am so sorry, for it has quite spoiled her Christmas. Hush! don’t say I told you anything about it.”
“What mischief are you two children plotting?” Cousin Mildred tries to speak cheerily, and to turn her face so that they may not see any traces of tears about her pretty blue eyes, but there is a little quiver in her voice which betrays her.
In a moment Alice’s arm is round her neck and Bertie is consoling her after his rough and ready fashion.
“Cheer up, Cousin Milly! I’ll bet anything you’ll get a letter to-morrow.”
“I can’t do that, Bertie, I’m afraid, for the postman doesn’t come on Christmas Day.”
“Doesn’t he? What a beastly shame! I declare I’ll speak to Father” —
“No, no – your father knows all about it – it’s quite right, and I’m so glad the poor old man has one day to spend comfortably with his wife and children. I don’t quite know why Cecil has not written – but worrying about it won’t do any good. Now let us talk about something else. Alice, when you can be spared from the tree, Mother wants all the help she can get for the Church-dressing.”
“Is she down at the Church now? All right darling – I’ll come in two minutes. Isn’t it a plague about these candles? The shops are sure to be shut in Appleton the day after Christmas, and the poor children will be so disappointed if we have to put off the tree.”
“The poor, dear school-children! Oh, that is a pity. But candles – oh, dear! I don’t know how we can do without them. Is it quite impossible to send to Appleton to-day?”
“Why, to say the truth I asked Father this morning, and he said there was no one to go. You see Coachman is away for a holiday, and Sam is as busy as he can be – and there is no one else who can be trusted with a horse – and one cannot ask anybody to trudge five miles and back through the snow, though it is not at all deep.”
“And there is more snow coming, I fear,” says Mildred looking out at the grey, thick wintry sky – “it is awfully cold. Ah! there is a feeble little ray of sunshine struggling out! Well, I must go back to my occupation of measuring flannel for the old women’s petticoats – it is nice and warm for one’s fingers at any rate. And, Ally dear, tell Mother I’ll join her at the church as soon as ever I can. The keepers have brought us such lovely holly out of the woods – you never saw such wealth of berries. The wreaths will be splendid this year.”
And Mildred goes away humming a little Christmas carol, and bravely trying to forget the sore anxiety that is pressing on her heart, for the faraway soldier lover whose Christmas greeting she had so hoped to receive to-day.
“Isn’t she a trump?” cries Bertie, who can see and appreciate the effort his cousin is making. “I know she has half cried her eyes out when she was by herself, but she didn’t mean us to find it out. I say, Alice, I’ll have another try for that letter of hers, and get your candles too. Grey Plover has been roughed, and he’s as sure-footed as a goat – the snow is nothing to hurt now, and I’ll trot over to Appleton and be back in no time at all.”
“Oh, Bertie, don’t! Cousin Mildred said there was a snow-storm coming, and you might get lost like the people in the Swiss mountains” —
“Or the babes in the wood, eh? You little silly, don’t you think I’m man enough to take care of myself?”
And Master Bertie who is fifteen, and a regular sturdy specimen of a blue-eyed, sunburnt curly-haired English lad, draws himself up with great dignity and looks down patronizingly at his little sister.
Alice, of course, subsides, vanquished by this appeal, but she cannot help feeling some very uncomfortable qualms of conscience when it appears that she is to be the only person admitted into the young gentleman’s confidence.
“Don’t go bothering poor Mother about it – she always gets into such a funk, as if no one knew how to take care of themselves. And be sure not to say a word to Cousin Mildred – I want to surprise her by bringing her letter by the second post. And if Father asks where I am – oh! but that will be all right. I shall get back before he comes home from shooting” – and Bertie is gone before his sister has time to put into words the remonstrance she has been struggling to frame.
“He’ll miss his dinner – poor dear” – she thinks compassionately, but is consoled by the remembrance of an admirable pastry-cook’s shop in Appleton where the ginger-bread is sure to be extra plentiful on Christmas Eve of all days in the year.
“A real old-fashioned Christmas, Father calls it!” thinks Alice as she goes to the window and looks out at the whitened landscape, amongst which the leafless branches of the trees stand out like the limbs of blackened giants. The snow which has been falling at intervals for some days is not deep, but there is a heavy lowering appearance about the sky betokening that the worst is yet to come. The little birds, which Alice has been befriending ever since the winter set in, come hopping familiarly round the window, and one saucy robin gives a peck to the glass, as if to intimate that a fresh supply of crumbs would be acceptable.
Alice feels in her pocket for a bit of bread and finding some fragments hastily scatters them on the window-ledge, promising a better repast by-and-bye. Then she gives a last look at the half-dressed Christmas Tree, shakes her head over the insufficient candles, and murmuring that Bertie really is the dearest boy in the world, runs off to aid her mother in decorating the old village Church.
Meanwhile Grey Plover is swiftly and resolutely bearing his rider over the half-frozen snow in a manner worthy of his name. He is a handsome, strong-built pony, Squire Chetwynd’s gift to his son on his last birthday, and a right goodly pair they make, at least in the fond father’s eyes.
Perhaps if either Mr. Chetwynd, or his steady old coachman had been at home, Master Bertie would not have found it quite so easy to get his steed saddled for that ten miles’ ride, with the ground already covered with snow, and the heaviest fall that has been known for many a year, visibly impending.
There is a keen north-easter blowing, but Appleton lies to the west, so that for the present it only comes on the back of his neck, and Bertie turns up his collar to keep out the flakes which seem scattered about here and there in the air, and trots bravely along, whistling and talking by turns to his pony, and to a wiry little terrier, which is really Cousin Mildred’s property, but in common with most other animals, is deeply devoted to Bertie.
“Steady, lad, steady,” and Bertie checks his steed as they descend a somewhat steep incline, bordered by high hedges, of which the one to the north is half concealed by a bank of snow.
“I declare I never thought it could have grown so deep in the time,” mutters Bertie to himself. “I hope it won’t snow again before to-night, or I shall have some work to get home. What’s the time? Just two – all right – two hours more daylight at any rate – more if a fog doesn’t come on. Good-day, John, Merry Christmas to you,” as the village carrier, his cart heavily laden with Christmas boxes and parcels, passes him leading his old horse carefully up the hill.
