The Second Christmas Megapack

by Robert Reginald

  “But you did say he was a boy,” said Alice, accurately critical.

  “He was gwowed up, Alice. Don’t you int—inter—”

  “Interrupt, you goosey,” said Alice.

  “One Christmas Eve these men fell to talking of their homes, and made up their minds to have a good dinner. But Hugh—”

  “Oh!” exclaimed the lad, “Hugh!”

  Mr. Chris nodded and continued. “But Hugh felt very weak because he was just getting well of a fever, yet they persuaded him to come to table with the rest. One man, a German, stood up and said, ‘This is the eve of Christmas. I will say our grace what we say at home.’ One man laughed, but the others were still. Then the German said, ‘Come, Lord Christ, and be our guest, Take with us what Thou hast blest.’

  “When Hugh heard the words the German said he began to think of home and of many Christmas eves, and because he felt a strangeness in his head, he said, ‘I’m not well; I will go into the air.’ As he moved, he saw before him a man in the doorway. The face of the man was sad, and his garment was white as snow. He said, ‘Follow me.’ But no others, except Hugh, saw or heard. Now, when Hugh went outside, the man he had seen was gone; but being still confused, Hugh went over the hard snow and among trees, not knowing what he did; and at last after wandering a long time he came to a steep hillside. Here he slipped and rolling down fell over a high place. Down, down, down he fell, and he fell.”

  “Oh! make him stop,” cried little Hugh.

  “He fell on to a deep bed of soft snow and was not hurt, but soon got up, and thought he was buried in a white tomb. But soon he understood, and his head grew clearer, and he beat the snow away and got out. Then, first he said a prayer, and that was the only prayer he had said in a long time.”

  “Oh my!” cried little Hugh. “I did think people could nevah sleep unless they say their prayers. That’s what nurse says. Doesn’t she, Alice?”

  And just here Kris had to wipe his eyes, but he took the little fellow’s hand in his and went on.

  “Soon he found shelter under a cliff, where no snow was, and with his flint and steel struck a light, and made with sticks and logs a big fire. After this he felt warm and better all over and fell asleep. When he woke up it was early morning, and looking about, he saw in the rock little yellow streaks and small lumps, and then he knew he had found a great mine of gold no man had ever seen before. By and by he got out of the valley and found his companions, and in the spring he went to his mine, which, because he had found it, was all his own, and he got people to work there and dig out the gold. After that he was no longer poor, but very, very rich.”

  “And was he good then?” said Hugh.

  “And did he go home,” said Alice, “and buy things?”

  “Yes, he went. One day he went home and at night saw his house and little children, and—but he will not stay, because there is no love waiting in his house, and all the money in the world is no good unless there is some love too. You see, dear, a house is just a house of brick and mortar, but when it is full of love, then it is a home.”

  “I like that man,” said Hugh. “Tell me more.”

  “But first,” said Alice, “oh! we do want to see all our presents.”

  “Ah, well. That is all, I think; and the presents. Now for the presents.” Then he opened a bag and took out first a string of great pearls, and said, as he hung them around Alice’s neck, “There, these the oysters made for you years ago under the deep blue sea. They are for a wedding gift from Chris. They are too fine for a little maid. No Queen has prettier pearls. But when you are married and some one you love vexes you or is unkind, look at these pearls, and forgive, oh! a hundred times over; twice, thrice, for every pearl, because Kris said it. You won’t understand now, but some day you will.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Alice, puzzled, and playing with the pearls.

  Said Hugh, “You said, Mr. Khwis, that the oysters make pearls. Why do the oysters make pearls?”

  “I will tell you,” replied Kris. “If a bit of something rough or sharp gets inside the oyster’s house, and it can’t be got rid of, the oyster begins to make a pearl of it, and covers it over and over until the rough, rude thing is one of these beautiful pearls.”

  “I see,” said Hugh.

  “That is a little fairy tale I made for myself; I often make stories for myself.”

  “That must be very nice, Mr. Khwis. How nice it must be for your little children every night when you tell them stories.”

  “Yes—yes”—and here Kris had to wipe his eyes with his handkerchief.

  “Isn’t that a doll?” said Alice, looking at the bag.

  “Yes; a doll from Japan.”

  “Oh!” exclaimed Alice.

  “And boxes of sugar-plums for Christmas,” he added. “And, Hugh, here are skates for you and this bundle of books.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “And these—and these for my—for Alice,” and Kris drew forth a half-dozen delicate Eastern scarves and cast them, laughing, around the girl’s neck as she stood delighted.

  “And now I want to trust you. This is for—for your mother; only an envelope from Kris to her. Inside is a fairy paper, and whenever she pleases it will turn to gold—oh! much gold, and she will be able then to keep her old home and you need never go away, and the pony will stay.”

  “Oh! that will be nice. We do sank you, sir; don’t we, Alice?”

  “Yes. But now I must go. Kiss me. You will kiss me?” He seemed to doubt it.

  “Oh! yes,” they cried, and cast their little arms about him while he held them in a long embrace, loath to let them go.

  “O Alice!” said Hugh, “Mr. Khwis is cwying. What’s the matter, Mr. Khwis?”

  “Nothing,” he said. “Once I had two little children, and you see you look like them, and—and I have not seen them this long while.”

  Alice silently reflected on the amount of presents which Kris’s children must have, but Hugh said:

  “We are bofe wewy sorry for you, Mr. Khwis.”

  “Thank you,” he returned, “I shall remember that, and now be still a little, I must write to your mother, and you must give her my letter after she has my present.”

  “Yes,” said Alice, “we will.”

  Then Kris lit a candle and took paper and pen from the table, and as they sat quietly waiting, full of the marvel of this famous adventure, he wrote busily, now and then pausing to smile on them, until he closed and gave the letter to the boy.

  “Be careful of these things,” he said, “for now I must go.”

  “And will you nevah, nevah come back?”

  “My God!” cried the man. “Never—perhaps never. Don’t forget me, Alice, Hugh.” And this time he kissed them again and went by and opened the door to the stairway.

  “We thank you ever so much,” said Hugh, and standing aside he waited for Alice to pass, having in his child-like ways something of the grave courtesy of the ancestors who looked down on him from the walls. Alice courtesied and the small cavalier, still with the old rapier in hand, bowed low. Kris stood at the door and listened to the patter of little feet upon the stair; then he closed it with noiseless care. In a few minutes he had put out the candles, resumed his cloak, and left the house. The snow no longer fell. The waning night was clearer, and to eastward a faint rosy gleam foretold the coming of the sun of Christmas. Kris glanced up at the long-windowed house and turning went slowly down the garden path.

  Long before their usual hour of rising, the children burst into the mother’s room. “You monkeys,” she cried, smiling; “Merry Christmas to you! What is the matter?”

  “Oh! he was here! he did come!” cried Alice.

  “Khwis was here,” said Hugh. “I did hear him in the night, and I told Alice it was Khwis, and she said it was a wobber, and I said it wasn’t a wobber. And we went to see, and it was a man. It was Khwis. He did say so.”

  “What! a man at night in the house! Are you crazy, children?”

  “
And Hugh took grandpapa’s sword, and—”

  “Gweat-gwanpapa’s,” said Hugh, with strict accuracy.

  “You brave boy!” cried the woman, proudly. “And he stole nothing, and, oh! what a silly tale.”

  “But it was Khwis, mamma. He did give us things. I do tell you it was Khwis Kwingle.”

  “Oh! he gave us things for you, and for me, and for Hugh, and he gave me this,” cried Alice, who had kept her hand behind her, and now threw the royal pearls on the bed amid a glory of Eastern scarves.

  “Are we all bewitched?” cried the mother.

  “Oh! and skates, and sugar-plums, and books, and a doll, and this for you. Oh! Khwis didn’t forget nobody, mamma.”

  The mother seized and hastily opened the blank envelope which the boy gave her.

  “What! what!” she cried, as she stared at the inclosure; “is this a jest?”

  UNION TRUST CO., NEW YORK.

  MADAME:

  We have the honor to hold at your disposal the following registered United States bonds, in all amounting to—.

  The sum was a great fortune. The Trust Company was known to her, even its president’s signature.

  “What’s the matter, mamma,” cried Alice, amazed at the unusual look the calm mother’s face wore as she arose from the bed, while the great pearls tumbled over and lay on the sunlit floor, and the fairy letter fell unheeded. Her thoughts were away in the desert of her past life.

  “And here, I forgot,” said Hugh, “Mr. Khwis did write you a letter.”

  “Quick,” she cried. “Give it to me.” She opened it with fierce eagerness. Then she said, “Go away, leave me alone. Yes, yes, I will talk to you by and by. Go now.” And she drove the astonished children from the room and sat down with her letter.

  “DEAR ALICE:

  Shall I say wife? I promised to come no more until you asked me to come. I can stand it no longer. I came only meaning to see the dear home, and to send you and my dear children a remembrance, but I—You know the rest. If in those dark days the mother care and fear instinctively set aside what little love was left for me I do not now wonder. Was it well, or ill, what you did when you bid me go? In God’s time I have learned to think it well. That hour is to me now like a blurred dream. Today I can bless the anger and the sense of duty to our children which drove me forth—too debased a thing to realize my loss. I have won again my self-control, thank God! am a man once more. You have, have always had, my love. You have today again a dozen times the fortune I meanly squandered. I shall never touch it; it is yours and your children’s. And now, Alice, is all love dead for me? And is it Yes or No? And shall I be always to my little ones Kris, and tonight a mysterious memory, or shall I be once more

  YOUR HUGH?

  “A letter to the bank will find me.”

  As she read, the quick tears came aflood. She turned to her desk and wrote in tremulous haste, “Come, come at once,” and ringing for the maid, sent it off to the address he gave. The next morning she dressed with unusual care. At the sound of the whistle of the train she went down to the door. Presently, a strong, erect, eager man came swiftly up the pathway. She was in his arms a minute after, little Hugh exclaiming, “O Alice! Mr. Khwis is kissing mamma!”

  ROSEMARY: A CHRISTMAS STORY, by C. N. & A. M. Williamson

  To Minda

  CHAPTER ONE: THE WHITE GIRL ON THE TERRACE: THE ROSE GIRL AT THE CASINO

  There was a young man in Monte Carlo. He had come in a motor car, and he had come a long way, but he hardly knew why he had come. He hardly knew in these days why he did anything. But then, one must do something.

  It would be Christmas soon, and he thought that he would rather get it over on the Riviera than anywhere else, because the blue and gold weather would not remind him of other Christmases which were gone—pure, white, cold Christmases, musical with joy-bells and sweet with aromatic pine, the scent of trees born to be Christmas trees.

  There had been a time when he had fancied it would be a wonderful thing to see the Riviera. He had thought what it would be like to be a rich man, and bring a certain girl here for a moon of honey and roses.

  She was the most beautiful girl in the world, or he believed her so, which is exactly the same thing; and he had imagined the joy of walking with her on just such a terrace as this Casino terrace where he was walking now, alone. She would be in white, with one of those long ermine things that women call stoles; an ermine muff (the big, “granny” kind that swallows girlish arms up to the dimples in their elbows) and a hat which they would have bought together in Paris.

  They would have bought jewels, too, in the same street where they found the hat; the Rue de la Paix, which she had told him she longed to see. And she would be wearing some of the jewels with the white dress—just a few, not many, of course. A string of pearls (she loved pearls) a swallow brooch (he had heard her say she admired those swallow brooches, and he never forgot anything she said); with perhaps a sapphire-studded buckle on her white suede belt. Yes, that would be all, except the rings, which would lie hidden under her gloves, on the dear little hands whose nails were like enamelled rose leaves.

  When she moved, walking beside him on the terrace, there would be a mysterious silky whisper and rustle, something like that you hear in the woods, in the spring, when the leaves are crisp with their pale green youth, and you shut your eyes, listening to the breeze telling them the secrets of life.

  There would be a fragrance about the white dress and the laces, and ermine, and the silk things that you could not see—a fragrance as mysterious as the rustling, for it would seem to belong to the girl, and not to have come from any bottle, or bag of sachet powder. A sweet, fresh, indefinable fragrance, like the smell of a tea rose after rain.

  They would have walked together, they two, and he would have been so proud of her, that every time a passer-by cast a glance of admiration at her face, he would feel that he could hardly keep in a laugh of joy, or a shout, “She is mine—she is mine.”

  But he had been poor in the old days, when from far away he had thought of this terrace, and the moon of honey and roses, and love. It had all been a dream, then, as it was now; too sweet ever to come true.

  He thought of the dream, and of the boy who had dreamed it, half bitterly, half sadly, on this his first day in the place of the dream.

  He was rich—as rich as he had seen himself in the impossible picture, and it would have been almost too easy to buy the white dress, and the ermine, and the pearls. But there was no one for whom he would have been happy to buy them. The most beautiful girl in the world was not in his world now; and none other had had the password to open the door of his heart since she had gone out, locking it behind her.

  “She would have liked the auto,” he said to himself. And then, a moment later, “I wonder why I came?”

  It was a perfect Riviera day. Everybody in Monte Carlo who was not in the Casino was sauntering on the terrace in the sun; for it was that hour before luncheon when people like to say, “How do you do?—How nice to meet you here!” to their friends.

  The young man from far away had not, so far as he knew, either enemies or friends at Monte Carlo. He was not conscious of the slightest desire to say “How do you do?” to any of the pretty people he met, although there is a superstition that every soul longs for kindred souls at Christmas time.

  He had not been actively unhappy before he left the Hotel de Paris and strolled out on the terrace, to have his first sight of Monte Carlo by daylight. Always, there was the sore spot in his heart, and often it ached almost unbearably at night, or when the world hurt him with its beauty, which he must see without Her; but usually he kept the spot well covered up; and being healthy as well as young, he had cultivated that kind of contentment which Thoreau said was only desperate resignation in disguise. He took an interest in books, in politics, and sport and motor cars, and a good many other things; but on the terrace, the blue of the sea; the opal lights on the mountains; the gold glint of oranges among green,
glittering leaves; the pearly glimmer of white roses thrown up like a spray against the sky, struck at his heart, and made the ache come back more sharply than it had for a long time.

  If he had been a girl, tears would have blinded his eyes; but being what he was, he merely muttered in anger against himself, “Hang it all, what a wretched ass I am,” and turning his back on the sea, made his way as fast as he could into the Casino.

  It was close upon twelve o’clock, and the “Rooms” had been open to the public for two hours. The “early gamblers” thronging the Atrium to wait till the doors opened, had run in and snatched seats for themselves at the first tables, or marked places to begin at eleven o’clock, if crowded away from the first. Later, less ardent enthusiasts had strolled in; and now, though it was not by any means the “high season” yet, there were rows of players or lookers on, three deep round each table.

  The young man was from the South—though a South very different from this. He had the warm blood of Virginia in his veins, and just so much of the gambler’s spirit as cannot be divided from a certain recklessness in a man with a temperament. He had seen plenty of life in his own country, in the nine years since he was twenty, and he knew all about roulette and trente et quarante, among other things desirable and undesirable.

  Still, gambling seemed to be made particularly fascinating here, and he wanted to be fascinated, wanted it badly. He was in the mood for the heavy hush of the Rooms, for the closeness, and the rich perfumes, which mingling together seem like the smell of money piled on the green tables; he was in a mood for the dimmed light like dull gold, gold sifted into dust by passing through many hands.

  He had got his ticket of admission to the Casino, after arriving yesterday evening; but the Rooms had not pleased him then. He had not played, and had merely walked through, looking at the people; but now he went to a trente et quarante table, and reaching over the shoulders of the players—not so many as in the roulette rooms—he put a five hundred franc note on couleur. It won. He let the money lie, and it won again. A third time and a fourth he left the notes on, and still luck was with him. He was in for a good run.