A Little Book of Christmas Part 9

"h.e.l.lo, Dobby," cried his friend and neighbor, Grantham. "What's happened to you--an eighteen-karat family man spending his Christmas Eve at a club? Shame on you!"

"I am duly repentant, Gran," replied Dobbleigh, "but you see, as your neighbor, I felt it my duty to keep an eye on you this night. There are hobgoblins in the air. Why are you not at home in the bosom of your family yourself?"

"The walking is too bad," said Grantham. "And, besides, that confounded valet of mine forgot to put my snowshoes in my suit-case."

"They say the river is frozen solid all the way up," put in Billie Ricketts, who is a good deal of a wag, as all old bachelors are apt to be. "Why don't you fellows skate home?"

"I tried it," smiled Grantham, "but the wind is blowing down the river, and I live up. I hadn't been going more than two hours when I landed on Staten Island."

In this way the exiles strove to comfort each other, and on the surface succeeded, but inwardly a very miserable lot they were. Clubs have their attractions, but we have not yet succeeded in developing an inst.i.tution of that kind which is a fair subst.i.tute for the home fireside on a Christmas Eve. Even the most confirmed old bachelor will confess to you that, way down deep in his heart, the comforts of such organizations seem cheerless and cold in contrast to the visions of smiling hearthstones and merry gatherings of happy children, that come to them in their dreams.

"You've got some bundle there, Dobby," said Grantham, as Dobbleigh relieved himself of his burden of packages. "What are you going to do, open a department store?"

"Huh!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Ricketts. "You're a fine fellow to talk. Ought to have seen Gran when he staggered in here an hour ago, Dobby. I thought at first he was a branch office of the American Express Company--honest I did. Talk about your bundle trust--Gran had the market cornered."

"Well, why shouldn't I have?" demanded Grantham. "Haven't I got five of the finest kids that ever climbed a Christmas tree?"

"Nope," said Dobbleigh, with an air of conviction. "Your five are dandies, Gran, but you ought to see my six."

"I've seen 'em," said Grantham, "and I'll give every blessed one of 'em honorable mention as high-steppers and thoroughbreds, but when it comes to the real thing--well, my five are blue-ribbon kids all right, all right."

"How you fathers do brag about little things!" snorted Ricketts. "You two braggarts can roll your eleven into one, and the aggregate wouldn't be a marker to what my children would be if I had any. I've half a mind to give up my state of single blessedness, just to show you vainglorious chaps what--"

Just what Ricketts was going to show the a.s.sembled gathering the world will never be able to do more than guess, for he was not permitted to finish the sentence. It was at this precise point that Doctor Mallerby, shedding snow from his broad, burly figure at every step, staggered into the room, and, with a scant greeting to his friends, hastened to the blazing log fire on the club hearth, and kneeling before it, began unwrapping a bundle of some size that he, too, carried in his arms.

"What on earth have you got there, doctor?" cried Ricketts, craning his neck over the newcomer's shoulder. "One of these new character dolls?"

"No, Billie, no," said Mallerby, fumbling away at the bundle. "I wish to Heaven it were. Can't you see, old man--it's the real thing!"

"The real what?" said Ricketts, bending lower.

"The real thing," returned Mallerby, in a low voice. "A poor little tot of a newsboy--"

"Where on earth did you pick him up?" gasped Ricketts, as the others gathered around.

"Out of the storm," said Mallerby. "I found him huddled up in the vestibule of Colonel Mortimer's when I came out of the house ten minutes ago. The poor little devil was curled up almost into a knot, trying to keep warm, and lay there fast asleep, with his papers under his arm. I honestly believe that if I hadn't come out when I did it would have been too late. This is a fierce storm."

"He isn't--he isn't frozen, is he?" faltered Dobbleigh, as he gazed into the blue little face of the unconscious urchin, a face grimy with the frequent mixture of two dirty little fists and his tears.

"Not quite," said Mallerby. "I think I got him in time, and he'll pull through, but he had a mighty close call of it. By George, boys, just think of a wee bit of a tot like that, barely more than six years old, having to be out on a night like this! Why, the poor little cuss ought to be dreaming of Santa Claus in a nice warm bed somewhere, instead of picking pennies out of these arctic streets of ours, in order to keep body and soul together."

Warmed by the glow of the fire, the youngster stirred as the doctor spoke, and a weary little voice, scarce higher than a whisper, broke the stillness of the room:

"Extree! Bigges' blizzid in twenty years. Extree! Piper, sir?"

The seven sophisticated men of the world, gathered about the prostrate figure, stood silent, and three of them turned away, lest the others should see the unmanly moisture of their eyes.

"Here, by thunder!" gasped Ricketts, pulling a roll of bills from his pocket. "Hanged if I won't buy the whole edition."

"That's all right, Billie," smiled the doctor. "What he needs just now is something less cold than money. We'll take him upstairs, and give him a warm bath, fill his little stomach up with milk, and put him to bed, with a nice fuzzy blanket to thaw out his icy little legs."

"Splendid!" said Ricketts. "But, see here, doctor, I want to be in on this. Isn't there anything I can do to help?"

"Yes," said the doctor. "You might make this proceeding regular by putting him up as your guest on a ten-day card."

The little bundle of rags and humanity was tenderly carried to the regions above, and under the almost womanly ministrations of Doctor Mallerby was completely restored to cleanliness and warmth; what hunger he might have been conscious of was a.s.suaged by a great b.u.mper of milk, and then in the most sumptuous apartment the club was able to provide the thawed-out little gamin was put to bed.

The snowy sheets, the soft, downy pillows, and the soul-warming blankets, were not needed to lure him into the land of dreams, for the bitter experiences of the earlier hours of the night still weighed heavily upon his eyelids, even if his mind and heart were no longer conscious of them. He presented a most appealing picture as he lay there, after settling back with a deep-drawn sigh of content into the kindly embrace of a bed seven or eight sizes too big for him, his little legs scarcely reaching halfway to the middle, and his tousled head of red hair forming a rubricated spot on the milk-white pillow-case as it stuck up out of the bed-clothes, and lay comfortably back in what was probably the first soft nest it had known since it lay on its mother's breast--if, indeed, it had ever known that rare felicity.

"There," said the doctor, as the little foundling, with a suspicion of a smile on his pursed-up lips, wandered more deeply into the land of Nod. "I guess he's fixed for the night, anyhow, and the rest of us can go about our business."

The seven men tiptoed softly out of the room, and adjourned to the s.p.a.cious chambers below, where for an hour they tried to lose themselves in the chaos of bridge. They were all fairly expert players at that n.o.ble social obsession, but n.o.body would have guessed it that night. No party of beginners ever played quite so atrociously, and yet no partner was found sufficiently outraged to be acrimonious. The fact was that not one of them was able to keep his mind on the cards, the thoughts of every one of them reverting constantly to the wan little figure in that upper room.

Finally Dobbleigh, after having reneged twice, and trumped his partner's trick more than once, threw down his cards, and drew away from the table impatiently.

"It's no use, fellows," he said. "I can't keep my eye on the ball. I'm going to bed."

"Same here," said Ricketts. "Every blessed face card in this pack--queen, king, or jack--is a red-headed little newsboy to me, and every spade is a heart. It's me for Slumberland."

So the party broke up, and within an hour the clubhouse went dark.

Doctor Mallerby a.s.sumed possession of a single room adjoining that of their little guest, so that he might keep an eye upon his newly acquired patient through the night, and the others distributed themselves about on the upper floors.

At midnight all was still as a sylvan dell in the depths of a winter's night, when no sounds of birds, or of rustling leaves, or of babbling waters break in upon the quiet of the scene.

It was three o'clock in the morning when Doctor Mallerby was roused suddenly from his sleep by the sound of stealthy footsteps in the adjoining room, where the little sleeper lay. He rose hastily from his couch, and entered the room, and was much surprised to see, in the dim light of the hall lamp, no less a person than Dobbleigh, acting rather suspiciously, too.

"Hullo, what are you up to, Dobby?" he queried, in a low whisper, as he espied that worthy, clad in a bath robe of too ample proportions, stealing out of the room.

"Why--nothing, Mallerby, nothing," replied Dobbleigh, evidently much embarra.s.sed. "I--er--I just thought I'd run down, and see how the little chap was getting along. I'm something of a father myself, you know."

"What's all this?" continued the doctor, as his eye fell upon a number of strange-looking objects spread along the foot of the bed, far beyond the reach of the little toes of the sleeper--a book of rhymes with a gorgeous red cover; a small tin trumpet, with a pleasing variety of stops; a box of tin soldiers; and a complete rough-rider's outfit, sword, cap, leggings, and blouse; not to mention an a.s.sortment of other things well calculated to delight the soul of youth.

"Why," faltered Dobbleigh, his face turning as red as the flag of anarchy, "you see, I happened to have these things along with me, Mallerby--for my own kiddies, you know--and it sort of seemed a pity not to get some use out of them on Christmas morning, and so--Oh, well, you know, old man."

The hand of the doctor gripped that of the intruder, and he tried to a.s.sure him that he did know, but he couldn't. He choked up, and was about to turn away when the door began moving slowly upon its hinges once more, and Grantham entered, quite as much after the fas.h.i.+on of the stealthy-footed criminal as Dobbleigh. He, too, carried a variety of packages, and under each arm was a tightly packed golf stocking. He started back as he saw Dobbleigh and the doctor standing by the bedside, but it was too late. They had caught him in the act.

"Ah, Grantham," said Dobbleigh, with a grin. "Giving an imitation of a second-story man, eh? What are you going to do with those two stuffed clubs? Sandbag somebody?"

"Yes," said Grantham sheepishly. "I've had it in for the doctor for some time, and I thought I'd sneak down and give him one while he slept."

"All right, Granny," smiled the doctor. "Just hang your clubs on the foot of the bed here, and after I've got to sleep again, come in, and perpetrate the dastardly deed."

"Fact is, boys," said Grantham seriously, "these things I was taking home to my youngsters are going to waste under the circ.u.mstances, and I had an idea it wouldn't hurt our guest here to wake up just once to a real Santa Claus feast."

"Fine!" said the doctor. "Looks to me as if this youngster had thrown doubles. Dobby here has already fitted him out with a complete army, and various other things, too numerous to mention."