Ho! Ho! Ho! Santa Claus' Reading List

by A. A. Milne

  * * *

  "I had supper long ago, but really I think I can take something more," said Mrs. Townsend, drawing her chair nearer to the table.

  * * *

  "Of course you can, my dear lady; in this cold fall weather people ought to eat twice as much as they do in warm. Let me give you a piece of this ham, your own curing, I dare say."

  * * *

  "Yes: my poor husband was very fond of it. He used to say that no one understood curing ham and drying beef better than I."

  * * *

  "He was a most sensible man, I am sure. I drink your health, ma'am, in this cider."

  * * *

  He took a long draught, and set down his glass.

  * * *

  "It is like nectar."

  * * *

  The widow was feeding Bose and the cat (who thought they were entitled to a share of every meal eaten in the house), and did not quite hear what he said.

  * * *

  "Fine dog, ma'am, and a very pretty cat."

  * * *

  "They were my husband's favorites," and a sigh followed the answer.

  * * *

  "Ah, your husband must have been a very happy man."

  * * *

  The blue eyes looked at her so long, that she grew flurried.

  * * *

  "Is there anything more I can get for you, sir?" she asked, at last.

  * * *

  "Nothing, thank you; I have finished."

  * * *

  She rose to clear the things away. He assisted her, and somehow their hands had a queer knack of touching as they carried the dishes to the pantry shelves. Coming back to the kitchen, she put the apples and cider in their old places, and brought out a clean pipe and a box of tobacco from an arched recess near the chimney.

  * * *

  "My husband always said he could not sleep after eating supper late unless he smoked," she said. "Perhaps you would like to try it."

  * * *

  "Not if it is to drive you away," he answered, for she had her candle in her hand.

  * * *

  "Oh, no; I do not object to smoke at all." She put the candle down; some faint suggestion about "propriety" troubled her, but she glanced at the old clock, and felt reassured. It was only half-past nine.

  * * *

  The stranger pushed the stand back after the pipe was lit, and drew her easy-chair a little nearer the fire, and his own.

  * * *

  "Come, sit down," he said, pleadingly; "it's not late, and when a man has been knocking about in California and all sorts of places, for a score of years, he is glad enough to get into a berth like this, and to have a pretty woman to speak to once again."

  * * *

  "California! Have you been in California?" she exclaimed, dropping into the chair at once. Unconsciously, she had long cherished the idea that Sam Payson, the lover of her youth, with whom she had so foolishly quarreled, had pitched his tent, after many wanderings, in that far-off land. Her heart warmed to one who, with something of Sam's looks and ways about him, had also been sojourning in that country, and who very possibly had met him—perhaps had known him intimately! At that thought her heart beat quick, and she looked very graciously at the bearded stranger, who, wrapped in Mr. Townsend's dressing-gown, wearing Mr. Townsend's slippers, and sitting in Mr. Townsend's chair, beside Mr. Townsend's wife, smoked Mr. Townsend's pipe with such an air of feeling most thoroughly and comfortably at home!

  * * *

  "Yes, ma'am. I've been in California for the last six years. And before that I went quite round the world in a whaling ship!"

  * * *

  "Good gracious!"

  * * *

  The stranger sent a puff of smoke curling gracefully over his head.

  * * *

  "It's very strange, my dear lady, how often you see one thing as you go wandering about the world after that fashion."

  * * *

  "And what is that?"

  * * *

  "Men, without house or home above their heads, roving here and there, and turning up in all sorts of odd places; caring very little for life as a general thing, and making fortunes just to fling them away again, and all for one reason. You don't ask me what that is? No doubt you know already very well."

  * * *

  "I think not, sir."

  * * *

  "Because a woman has jilted them!"

  * * *

  Here was a long pause, and Mr. Townsend's pipe emitted short puffs with surprising rapidity. A guilty conscience needs no accuser, and the widow's cheek was dyed with blushes as she thought of the absent Sam.

  * * *

  "I wonder how women manage when they get served in the same way," said the stranger musingly; "you never meet them roaming up and down in that style."

  * * *

  "No," said Mrs. Townsend, with some spirit, "if a woman is in trouble she must stay at home and bear it, the best way she can. And there's more women bearing such things than we know of, I dare say."

  * * *

  "Like enough. We never know whose hand gets pinched in a trap unless they scream. And women are too shy or too sensible—which you choose—for that."

  * * *

  "Did you ever, in all your wanderings, meet any one by the name of Samuel Payson?" asked the widow, unconcernedly.

  * * *

  The stranger looked toward her; she was rummaging the table-drawer for her knitting work, and did not notice him. When it was found, and the needles in motion, he answered her.

  * * *

  "Payson—Sam Payson? Why, he was my most intimate friend! Do you know him?"

  * * *

  "A little—that is, I used to, when I was a girl. Where did you meet him?"

  * * *

  "He went with me on the whaling voyage I told you of, and afterward to California. We had a tent together, and some other fellows with us, and we worked the same claim for more than six months."

  * * *

  "I suppose he was quite well?"

  * * *

  "Strong as an ox."

  * * *

  "And—and happy?" pursued the widow, bending closer over her knitting.

  * * *

  "Hum—the less said about that the better, perhaps. But he seemed to enjoy life after a fashion of his own. And he got rich out there, or rather, I will say, well off."

  * * *

  Mrs. Townsend did not pay much attention to that part of the story. Evidently she had not finished asking questions, but she was puzzled about her next one. At last she brought it out beautifully:

  * * *

  "Was his wife with him in California?"

  * * *

  The stranger looked at her with twinkling eyes.

  * * *

  "His wife, ma'am! Why, bless you, he has not got any wife."

  * * *

  "Oh, I thought—I mean I heard"—here the little widow remembered the fate of Ananias and Sapphira, and stopped short before she told such a tremendous fib.

  * * *

  "Whatever you heard of his marrying was all nonsense, I can assure you. I knew him well, and he had no thoughts of the kind about him. Some of the boys used to tease him about it, but he soon made them stop."

  * * *

  "How?"

  * * *

  "He just told them frankly that the only woman he ever loved had jilted him years before, and married another man. After that no one ever mentioned the subject to him, except me."

  * * *

  Mrs. Townsend laid her knitting aside, and looked thoughtfully into the fire.

  * * *

  "He was another specimen of the class of men I was speaking of. I have seen him face death a score of times as quietly as I face the fire. 'It matters very little what takes me off,' he used to say; 'I've nothing to live for, and there's no one that will shed a tear for me when I am gone.' It's a sad thought for a man to have, isn't it?"

  * * *

  Mrs. Townsend sighed as she said
she thought it was.

  * * *

  "But did he ever tell you the name of the woman who jilted him?"

  * * *

  "I know her first name."

  * * *

  "What was it?"

  * * *

  "Maria."

  * * *

  The plump little widow almost started out of her chair, the name was spoken so exactly as Sam would have said it.

  * * *

  "Did you know her, too?" he asked, looking keenly at her.

  * * *

  "Yes."

  * * *

  "Intimately?"

  * * *

  "Yes."

  * * *

  "Where is she now? Still happy with her husband, I suppose, and never giving a thought to the poor fellow she drove out into the world?"

  * * *

  "No," said Mrs. Townsend, shading her face with her hand, and speaking unsteadily; "no, her husband is dead."

  * * *

  "Ah! but still she never thinks of Sam."

  * * *

  There was a dead silence.

  * * *

  "Does she?"

  * * *

  "How can I tell?"

  * * *

  "Are you still friends?"

  * * *

  "Yes."

  * * *

  "Then you ought to know, and you do. Tell me."

  * * *

  "I'm sure I don't know why I should. But if I do, you must promise me, on your honor, never to tell him, if you ever meet him again."

  * * *

  "Madam, what you say to me never shall be repeated to any mortal man, upon my honor."

  * * *

  "Well, then, she does remember him."

  * * *

  "But how?"

  * * *

  "As kindly, I think, as he could wish."

  * * *

  "I am glad to hear it, for his sake. You and I are the friends of both parties: we can rejoice with each other."

  * * *

  He drew his chair much nearer hers, and took her hand. One moment the widow resisted, but it was a magnetic touch, the rosy palm lay quietly in his, and the dark beard bent so low that it nearly touched her shoulder. It did not matter much. Was he not Samuel's dear friend? If he was not the rose, had he not dwelt very near it, for a long, long time?

  * * *

  "It was a foolish quarrel that parted them," said the stranger, softly.

  * * *

  "Did he tell you about it?"

  * * *

  "Yes, on board the whaler."

  * * *

  "Did he blame her much?"

  * * *

  "Not so much as himself. He said that his jealousy and ill-temper drove her to break off the match; but he thought sometimes if he had only gone back and spoken kindly to her, she would have married him after all."

  * * *

  "I am sure she would," said the widow piteously. "She has owned it to me more than a thousand times."

  * * *

  "She was not happy, then, with another."

  * * *

  "Mr.—that is to say, her husband—was very good and kind," said the little woman, thinking of the lonely grave out on the hillside rather penitently, "and they lived very pleasantly together. There never was a harsh word between them."

  * * *

  "Still—might she not have been happier with Sam? Be honest, now, and say just what you think."

  * * *

  "Yes."

  * * *

  "Bravo! that is what I wanted to come at. And now I have a secret to tell you, and you must break it to her."

  * * *

  Mrs. Townsend looked rather scared.

  * * *

  "What is it?"

  * * *

  "I want you to go and see her, wherever she may be, and say to her, 'Maria,'—what makes you start so?"

  * * *

  "Nothing; only you speak so like some one I used to know, once in a while."

  * * *

  "Do I? Well, take the rest of the message. Tell her that Sam loved her through the whole; that, when he heard she was free, he began to work hard at making a fortune. He has got it; and he is coming to share it with her, if she will let him. Will you tell her this?"

  * * *

  The widow did not answer. She had freed her hand from his, and covered her face with it. By and by she looked up again—he was waiting patiently.

  * * *

  "Well?"

  * * *

  "I will tell her."

  * * *

  He rose from his seat, and walked up and down the room. Then he came back, and leaning on the mantel-piece, stroked the yellow hide of Bose with his slipper.

  * * *

  "Make her quite understand that he wants her for his wife. She may live where she likes and how she likes, only it must be with him."

  * * *

  "I will tell her."

  * * *

  "Say he has grown old, but not cold; that he loves her now perhaps better than he did twenty years ago; that he has been faithful to her all through his life, and that he will be faithful till he dies."

  * * *

  The Californian broke off suddenly. The widow answered still, "I will tell her."

  * * *

  "And what do you think she will say?" he asked, in an altered tone.

  * * *

  "What can she say but Come!"

  * * *

  "Hurrah!"

  * * *

  The stranger caught her out of her chair as if she had been a child, and kissed her.

  * * *

  "Don't—oh, don't!" she cried out. "I am Sam's Maria!"

  * * *

  "Well—I am Maria's Sam!"

  * * *

  Off went the dark wig and the black whiskers—there smiled the dear face she had not forgotten! I leave you to imagine the tableau; even the cat got up to look, and Bose sat on his stump of a tail, and wondered if he was on his heels or his head.

  * * *

  The widow gave one little scream, and then she—

  * * *

  But, stop! Quiet people like you and me, dear reader, who have got over all these follies, and can do nothing but turn up our noses at them, have no business here. I will only add that two hearts were very happy, that Bose concluded after a while that all was right, and so lay down to sleep again, and that one week afterward, on Christmas Eve, there was a wedding at the house that made the neighbors stare. The widow had married her First Love!

  A Woman's Kingdom

  Anton Chekhov

  Christmas Eve

  HERE was a thick roll of notes. It came from the bailiff at the forest villa; he wrote that he was sending fifteen hundred roubles, which he had been awarded as damages, having won an appeal. Anna Akimovna disliked and feared such words as "awarded damages" and "won the suit." She knew that it was impossible to do without the law, but for some reason, whenever Nazaritch, the manager of the factory, or the bailiff of her villa in the country, both of whom frequently went to law, used to win lawsuits of some sort for her benefit, she always felt uneasy and, as it were, ashamed. On this occasion, too, she felt uneasy and awkward, and wanted to put that fifteen hundred roubles further away that it might be out of her sight.