Miss Santa Claus of the Pullman

by Annie F. Johnston

And Will'm liked the time which often came before that race down the hall—the wait in the firelight, while She played on the piano and he and Libby sang with her. There was one song about the farmer feeding his flocks, "with a quack, quack here, and a gobble, gobble there," that he liked especially. Whenever they came to the chorus of the flocks and the herds it was such fun to make all the barnyard noises. Sometimes with their lusty mooing and lowing the noise would be so great that they would fail to hear the latchkey turn in the door, and first thing they knew there their father would be in the room mooing with them, in a deep voice that thrilled them like a bass drum.

Libby entered school after the holidays, and Benjy started back on his second half-year, but he did not go regularly. Many a day when he should have been in his classes, he was playing War in the Branfield attic, or Circus in the nursery. It was always on those days that the crookedness of Will'm was more manifest, and for that reason, a great effort was made periodically to get rid of Benjy. But it seemed a hopeless task. He might be set bodily out of doors and told to go home, but even locks and bolts could not keep him out. He oozed in again somewhere, just like smoke. Repeated telephone messages to his mother had no effect. She seemed as indifferent to his being a nuisance to the neighbors as he was to his gartersnaps being unfastened. Several times, thinking to escape him when he had announced his intention the night before of coming early, Mrs. Branfield took Will'm down town with her, shopping. But he trailed them around the streets just like a little dog till he found them, and attached himself as joyously as if they had whistled to him. And he looked even worse than an unwashed, uncombed little terrier, for he was always unbuttoned and ungartered besides.

Upon these appearances, Will'm, who a moment before had been the most interested and interesting of companions, pointing at the shop windows and asking questions in a high, happy little voice, would pull loose from his companion's hand and fall back beside Benjy. The worst of it was that the unwelcome visitor rarely did anything that could be pointed out to Will'm as an offense. It was simply that his presence had a subtle, moving quality like yeast, which started fermentation in the Branfield household whenever he dropped into it.

Fortunately, when summer came, Benjy's mother departed to the seashore, taking him with her, and Will'm made the acquaintance of the children on the next block. There were several boys his own size who swarmed in the Branfield yard continually. He had a tent for one thing, which was an unusual attraction, and a slide. Up to a reasonable point he had access to a cooky jar and an apple barrel. Often, little tarts found their way to the tent on mornings when "the gang" proposed playing elsewhere, and often the long hot afternoons were livened with pitchers of lemonade in which ice clinked invitingly; a nice big chunk apiece, which lasted till the lemonade was gone, and could be used afterward in a sort of game. You dropped them on the ground to see who could pick his up and hold it the longest with his bare toes.

Will'm had a birthday about this time, with five candles on his cake and five boys, besides Libby, to share the feast. He loved all these things. He was proud of having treats to offer the boys which they could not find in any other yard on that street, and in time he began to love the hand which dealt them out. He might have done so sooner if Libby had not been so aggravating about it. She always took occasion to tell him afterward that such kindnesses were the little golden star-flowers mother was gathering for him, and that he ought to be ashamed to do even the littlest thing she told him not to, when she was so good to him.

Unfortunately Libby had overheard her mother speak of her as a real little comfort in the way she tried to uphold her authority and help her manage Will'm. The remark made her doubly zealous and her efforts, in consequence, doubly offensive to Will'm. He was learning early that a saint is one of the most exasperating people in the world to live with. Even when they don't say anything, they can make you feel the contrast sometimes so strongly that you want to be bad on purpose, just because they are the way they are.

Libby's little ring still turned her waking thoughts in the direction of Ina and the swans, and her morning remarks usually pointed the same way. The cherry-red stocking with its tinsel fringe hung from the side of her mirror, the most cherished ornament in the room, and a daily reminder of Miss Santa Claus, who was forever enshrined in her little heart as one of the dearest memories of her life. She felt that she owed everything to Miss Santa Claus. But for her she might have started out crooked, and might never have found her way to the mother-love which had grown to be such a precious thing to her that she could not bear for Will'm not to share it fully with her.

He learned to fight that summer, and nothing made him quite so furious as to have Libby interfere when he had some boy down, and by sheer force of will it seemed, since her three years' advantage in age gave her little in strength, pull him off his adversary, flapping and scratching like a little game-cock. Sometimes it made him so angry that he wanted to tear her in pieces. The worst of it was, that She always took Libby's part on such occasions, and never seemed to understand that it was necessary for him to do these things. She always looked so sorry and worried when he was dragged into the house, roaring and resentful.

Gradually as summer wore on into the autumn, it began to make him feel uncomfortable when he saw that sorry, worried look. It hurt him worse than when she sent him to his room or tied him to the table leg for punishment. And one night when he had openly defied her and been impudent, she did not say anything, but she did not kiss him good-night as usual. That hurt him worst of all. He lay awake a long time thinking about it. Part of the time he was crying softly, but he had his face snuggled close down in the pillow so that Libby couldn't hear him.

He wished with all his heart that she was his own, real mother. He felt that he needed one. He needed one who could understand and who had a right to punish him. It was because she hadn't that right that he resented her authority. All the boys said she hadn't. If she did no more than call from the window: "Don't do that, Will'm," they'd say in an undertone, "You don't have to pay any attention to her!" They seemed to think it was all right for their mothers to slap them and scold them and cuff them on the ears. He'd seen it done. He wouldn't care how much he was slapped and cuffed, if only somebody who was his truly own did it. Somebody who loved him. A queer little feeling had been creeping up in his heart for some time. Very often when She spoke to Libby she called her "little daughter" and she and Libby seemed to belong to each other in a way that shut Will'm out and gave him a lonesome left-in-the-cold feeling. Will'm was a reasonable child, and he was just, and up there in the dark where he could be honest with himself, he had to acknowledge that it was his own fault that she hadn't kissed him good-night. It was his fault because, having started out crooked, he didn't seem to be able to do anything but to go on crooked to the end. He couldn't tell her, but he wished, oh, how he wished, that She could know how he felt, and know that he was crying up there in the dark about it. He wished he could go back to the Junction and be Grandma Neal's little boy. She always kissed him good-night, even on days when she had to switch him with a peach-tree switch. When he was a little bigger he would just run off and go back to Grandma Neal.