The Christmas Megapack

by Reginald Robert

  “He’s holdin’ himself in,” said Annie, “Mister Muggs, give me the drum! Ye’ll not crowd into the chair with that upon your shoulder!”

  It seemed that Mister Muggs would. He began to swell. He began to drum. He carried his point and crammed himself and his drum into his chair at the table. He did not speak. Neither, from that time on, did he permit any lapse in his industry. What Muggs did, from drum to drum-sticks, he did well.

  Muggs ate turkey and mashed turnips. Muggs ate potatoes, cranberry sauce, boiled onions, and quite a little celery. He glinted ahead at a pie on the sideboard, seemed to make hurried structural calculations, and pushed his plate again toward the turkey. Aunt Ellen looked at the Doctor and the Doctor looked at Muggs.

  “If the child eats any more,” said Annie bluntly from the kitchen door, “he must have a pill. ’tis enough for him to drum away the peace of the Christmas day without stuffin’ himself that hard and round ye fear for his buttons. An’ to my mind, if he’d talk more and eat less, he’d not be in such danger o’ burstin’.”

  Mike looked slightly agitated.

  “Muggs,” said the Doctor firmly, “it comes to this. More turkey—one pill. No turkey—no pill.”

  Muggs exhibited a capacity for instant decision. With stubby forefinger rigid, he shoved his plate a little closer to the turkey.

  IV. THE LOG AT TWILIGHT

  There was a straw-ride in the farm sleigh after dinner, a story or two by the Yule log when the twilight closed in and Annie had lit the Christmas candles on the tree, and then as the boys were romping in a game of Roger’s the Doctor slipped away to his study for a quiet hour with a book. His lamp was barely lighted and the book upon his knee when the door opened and Jim stood before him, his face so white and strained that the Doctor laid aside his book, thinking instantly, of course, that here again was too much turkey.

  Jim hung his head, one toe burrowing in the carpet.

  “Doctor John!” he burst forth hoarsely.

  “Yes?”

  Jim gulped.

  “I—I been in jail!”

  The Doctor looked once at Jim’s face, quivering in an agony of shame, and hastily wiped his glasses. In the quiet came the laughter of romping boys.

  “Why,” said the Doctor very gently, “did you tell me?”

  Something in the kindly voice opened the flood-gates of a boy’s sore heart. Jim’s mouth quivered piteously, then he broke down and hid his face behind his elbow, sobbing wildly.

  “I wanta be square,” he cried passionately, “I wanta be square like you’ve been to us, an’—an Luke said ye might not want a jail-bird here for Christmas. I—stole—coal—for mom—”

  It was the old tale, one boy caught, paying for the petty thievery of the score who ran away. The Doctor heard the mumbled tale to the end and cleared his throat.

  “And so,” he said slowly, “you wanted to be square. That’s the finest thing I’ve heard this Christmas day. Wanted to be square. Well, well!” His hand was on Jim’s shoulder now. “Jim, I wonder if you could come back to me next Christmas and tell me you’d been absolutely straight—”

  “Here!” said Jim in a choking whisper, his eyes blazing through his tears, “again—for Christmas!”

  Somewhere on a snowy page a Christmas angel wrote: “One boy saved by the spirit of a country Christmas!”

  “Here,” repeated the Doctor, “again—for Christmas.” He opened the door. “Run along, now, Jim,” he said kindly, “or the boys will miss you.”

  Jim’s final words were very queer.

  “Doctor John,” he blurted, “I—I’m a goin’ to send poor little Muggs.”

  The Doctor was devoutly hoping that Muggs had never been in jail for stealing food or drums, when Muggs himself appeared clinging desperately to the hand of Mike. He seemed on the verge of a lachrymose explosion.

  Mike’s face was very red but it was also very hopeful.

  “Jim said to tell ye,” he mumbled. “She ain’t never had no Christmas an’ the minister he said the order was all boys an’—an’ she cried, so Mom said bring her anyway in my ol’ suit—you’d never know, an’—an’—an’—Oh, my gosh!” finished Mike tragically, “Muggs is a girl. Her—her name’s C-c-c-c-clara!”

  The Doctor jumped. So did Muggs. The lachrymose explosion came and the drum slipped down from the shoulder of Muggs with a clatter.

  “Don’t wanta go home!” came the heartbroken wail, “don’t wanta go home. Mom Murphy’ll git me.”

  “I—I tol’ her,” explained Mike uncomfortably, “that she mustn’t open her mouth once—jus’ act deaf an’ dumb or you’d guess maybe an’ send her home an’ Mom Murphy’d git her. An’—an’—she must take a drum like a boy—”

  Literal Muggs! Heaven alone knew by what other blood-thirsty threats than Mom Murphy Mike had encompassed the stony silence and frenzied drumming of the little sister who had never had a Christmas.

  “But why,” burst forth the despairing Doctor. “In heaven’s name—why—Muggs?”

  “She makes such awful faces,” said Mike apologetically. “Mom don’t know what makes her that way.” And then as Muggs was at the climax of one of the spasms that had won her her name, the Doctor suddenly lifted her in gentle arms and tossed her to the ceiling.

  “Poor, poor little kiddy!” he said huskily. “What a price she’s paid for her Christmas.”

  But Muggs had forgotten the price. Though it had been a hard day the Doctor’s eyes were kind and twinkly. Muggs buried her flushed and tearful little face on his shoulder with a sigh of content. He saw now that one knot of ribbon on the tousled, sunny curls would have told the story, then he glanced at the bagging suit and opened the door. Muggs went forth upon the Doctor’s shoulder.

  “Asher,” cried the Doctor, “hitch old Polly to the sleigh and telephone Sam Remsen that he can oblige me for once and open his store.”

  “Ye—ye ain’t goin’ to send her home, are ye?” faltered Mike.

  “I’m going,” cried the Doctor, “to buy Clara Muggs a dress and a doll. It’s her night.”

  The boys cheered.

  MERRY CHRISTMAS IN THE TENEMENTS, by Jacob A. Riis

  It was just a sprig of holly, with scarlet berries shoring against the green, stuck in, by one of the office boys probably, behind the sign that pointed the way up to the editorial rooms. There was no reason why it should have made me start when I came suddenly upon it at the turn of the stairs; but it did. Perhaps it was because that dingy hall, given over to dust and drafts all the days of the year, was the last place in which I expected to meet with any sign of Christmas; perhaps it was because I myself had nearly forgotten the holiday. Whatever the cause, it gave me quite a turn.

  I stood, and stared at it. It looked dry, almost withered. Probably it had come a long way. Not much holly grows about Printing-House Square, except in the colored supplements, and that is scarcely of a kind to stir tender memories. Withered and dry, this did. I thought, with a twinge of conscience, of secret little conclaves of my children, of private views of things hidden from mama at the bottom of drawers, of wild flights when papa appeared unbidden in the door, which I had allowed for once to pass unheeded. Absorbed in the business of the office, I had hardly thought of Christmas coming on, until now it was here. And this sprig of holly on the wall that had come to remind me—come nobody knew how far—did it grow yet in the beech-wood clearings, as it did when I gathered it as a boy, tracking through the snow? “Christ-thorn” we called it in our Danish tongue. The red berries, to our simple faith, were the drops of blood that fell from the Savior’s brow as it drooped under its cruel crown upon the cross.

  Back to the long ago wandered my thoughts: to the moss-grown beech in which I cut my name, and that of a little girl with yellow curls, of blessed memory, with the first jack-knife I ever owned; to the story-book with the little fir-tree that pined because it was small, and because the hare jumped over it, and would not be content though the wind and the sun kissed it, and the
dews wept over it, and told it to rejoice in its young life; and that was so proud when, in the second year, the hare had to go round it, because then it knew it was getting big—Hans Christian Andersen’s story, that we loved above all the rest; for we knew the tree right well, and the hare; even the tracks it left in the snow we had seen. Ah, those were the Yule-tide seasons, when the old Domkirke shone with a thousand wax candles on Christmas eve; when all business was laid aside to let the world make merry one whole week; when big red apples were roasted on the stove, and bigger doughnuts were baked within it for the long feast! Never such had been known since. Christmas today is but a name, a memory.

  A door slammed below, and let in the noises of the street. The holly rustled in the draft. Some one going out said, “A Merry Christmas to you all!” in a big, hearty voice. I awoke from my reverie to find myself back in New York with a glad glow at the heart. It was not true. I had only forgotten. It was myself that had changed, not Christmas. That was here, with the old cheer, the old message of good-will, the old royal road to the heart of mankind. How often had I seen its blessed charity, that never corrupts, make light in the hovels of darkness and despair! how often watched its spirit of self-sacrifice and devotion in those who had, besides themselves, nothing to give! and as often the sight had made whole my faith in human nature. No! Christmas was not of the past, its spirit not dead. The lad who fixed the sprig of holly on the stairs knew it; my reporter’s notebook bore witness to it. Witness of my contrition for the wrong I did the gentle spirit of the holiday, here let the book tell the story of one Christmas in the tenements of the poor.

  * * * *

  It is evening in Grand street. The shops east and west are pouring forth their swarms of workers. Street and sidewalk are filled with an eager throng of young men and women, chatting gaily, and elbowing the jam of holiday shoppers that linger about the big stores. The street-cars labor along, loaded down to the steps with passengers carrying bundles of every size and odd shape. Along the curb a string of peddlers hawk penny toys in push-carts with noisy clamor, fearless for once of being moved on by the police. Christmas brings a two-weeks’ respite from persecution even to the friendless street-fakir. From the window of one brilliantly lighted store a bevy of mature dolls in dishabille stretch forth their arms appealingly to a troop of factory-hands passing by. The young men chaff the girls, who shriek with laughter and run. The policeman on the corner stops beating his hands together to keep warm, and makes a mock attempt to catch them, whereat their shrieks rise shriller than ever. “Them stockin’s o’ yourn’ll be the death o’ Santa Claus!” he shouts after them, as they dodge. And they, looking back, snap saucily, “Mind yer business, freshy!” But their laughter belies their words. “They gin it to ye straight that time,” grins the grocer’s clerk, come out to snatch a look at the crowds; and the two swap holiday greetings.

  At the corner, where two opposing tides of travel form an eddy, the line of push-carts debouches down the darker side-street. In its gloom their torches burn with a fitful glare that wakes black shadows among the trusses of the railroad structure overhead. A woman, with worn shawl drawn tightly about head and shoulders, bargains with a peddler for a monkey on a stick and two cents’ worth of flitter-gold. Five ill-clad youngsters flatten their noses against the frozen pane of the toy-shop, in ecstasy at something there, which proves to be a milk-wagon, with driver, horses, and cans that can be unloaded. It is something their minds can grasp. One comes forth with a penny goldfish of pasteboard clutched tightly in his hand, and casting cautious glances right and left, speeds across the way to the door of a tenement, where a little girl stands waiting. “It’s yer Chris’mas, Kate,” he says, and thrusts it into her eager fist. The black doorway swallows them up.

  Across the narrow yard, in the basement of the rear house, the lights of a Christmas tree show against the grimy window-pane. The hare would never have gone around it, it is so very small. The two children are busily engaged fixing the goldfish upon one of its branches. Three little candles that burn there shed light upon a scene of utmost desolation. The room is black with smoke and dirt. In the middle of the floor oozes an oil-stove that serves at once to take the raw edge off the cold and to cook the meals by. Half the window-panes are broken, and the holes stuffed with rags. The sleeve of an old coat hangs out of one, and beats drearily upon the sash when the wind sweeps over the fence and rattles the rotten shutters. The family wash, clammy and gray, hangs on a clothes-line stretched across the room. Under it, at a table set with cracked and empty plates, a discouraged woman sits eying the children’s show gloomily. It is evident that she has been drinking. The peaked faces of the little ones wear a famished look. There are three—the third an infant, put to bed in what was once a baby-carriage. The two from the street are pulling it around to get the tree in range. The baby sees it, and crows with delight. The boy shakes a branch, and the goldfish leaps and sparkles in the candle-light.

  “See, sister!” he pipes; “see Santa Claus!” And they clap their hands in glee. The woman at the table wakes out of her stupor, gazes around her, and bursts into a fit of maudlin weeping.

  The door falls to. Five flights up, another opens upon a bare attic room which a patient little woman is setting to rights. There are only three chairs, a box, and a bedstead in the room, but they take a deal of careful arranging. The bed hides the broken plaster in the wall through which the wind came in; each chair-leg stands over a rat-hole, at once to hide it and to keep the rats out. One is left; the box is for that. The plaster of the ceiling is held up with pasteboard patches. I know the story of that attic. It is one of cruel desertion. The woman’s husband is even now living in plenty with the creature for whom he forsook her, not a dozen blocks away, while she “keeps the home together for the childer.” She sought justice, but the lawyer demanded a retainer; so she gave it up, and went back to her little ones. For this room that barely keeps the winter wind out she pays four dollars a month, and is behind with the rent. There is scarce bread in the house; but the spirit of Christmas has found her attic. Against a broken wall is tacked a hemlock branch, the leavings of the corner grocer’s fitting-block; pink string from the packing-counter hangs on it in festoons. A tallow dip on the box furnishes the illumination. The children sit up in bed, and watch it with shining eyes.

  “We’re having Christmas!” they say.

  The lights of the Bowery glow like a myriad twinkling stars upon the ceaseless flood of humanity that surges ever through the great highway of the homeless. They shine upon long rows of lodging-houses, in which hundreds of young men, cast helpless upon the reef of the strange city, are learning their first lessons of utter loneliness; for what desolation is there like that of the careless crowd when all the world rejoices? They shine upon the tempter, setting his snares there, and upon the missionary and the Salvation Army lass, disputing his catch with him; upon the police detective going his rounds with coldly observant eye intent upon the outcome of the contest; upon the wreck that is past hope, and upon the youth pausing on the verge of the pit in which the other has long ceased to struggle. Sights and sounds of Christmas there are in plenty in the Bowery. Juniper and tamarack and fir stand in groves along the busy thoroughfare, and garlands of green embower mission and dive impartially. Once a year the old street recalls its youth with an effort. It is true that it is largely a commercial effort—that the evergreen, with an instinct that is not of its native hills, haunts saloon-corners by preference; but the smell of the pine-woods is in the air, and—Christmas is not too critical—one is grateful for the effort. It varies with the opportunity. At “Beefsteak John’s” it is content with artistically embalming crullers and mince-pies in green cabbage under the window lamp. Over yonder, where the mile-post of the old lane still stands—in its unhonored old age become the vehicle of publishing the latest “sure cure” to the world—a florist, whose undenominational zeal for the holiday and trade outstrips alike distinction of creed and property, has transformed the sidewalk and
the ugly railroad structure into a veritable bower, spanning it with a canopy of green, under which dwell with him, in neighborly good-will, the Young Men’s Christian Association and the Gentile tailor next door.

  In the next block a “turkey-shoot” is in progress. Crowds are trying their luck at breaking the glass balls that dance upon tiny jets of water in front of a marine view with the moon rising, yellow and big, out of a silver sea. A man-of-war, with lights burning aloft, labors under a rocky coast. Groggy sailormen, on shore leave, make unsteady attempts upon the dancing balls. One mistakes the moon for the target, but is discovered in season. “Don’t shoot that,” says the man who loads the guns; “there’s a lamp behind it.” Three scared birds in the window-recess try vainly to snatch a moment’s sleep between shots and the trains that go roaring overhead on the elevated road. Roused by the sharp crack of the rifles, they blink at the lights in the street, and peck moodily at a crust in their bed of shavings.

  The dime-museum gong clatters out its noisy warning that “the lecture” is about to begin. From the concert-hall, where men sit drinking beer in clouds of smoke, comes the thin voice of a short-skirted singer warbling, “Do they think of me at home?” The young fellow who sits near the door, abstractedly making figures in the wet track of the “schooners,” buries something there with a sudden restless turn, and calls for another beer. Out in the street a band strikes up. A host with banners advances, chanting an unfamiliar hymn. In the ranks marches a cripple on crutches. Newsboys follow, gaping. Under the illuminated clock of the Cooper Institute the procession halts, and the leader, turning his face to the sky, offers a prayer. The passing crowds stop to listen. A few bare their heads. The devoted group, the flapping banners, and the changing torch-light on upturned faces, make a strange, weird picture. Then the drum-beat, and the band files into its barracks across the street. A few of the listeners follow, among them the lad from the concert-hall, who slinks shamefacedly in when he thinks no one is looking.