He promised her solemnly that he would not drink a drop that Christmas—so solemnly that she believed him. He had helped her to wash the dishes and put the children to bed. And he had kissed her.
Her face had been radiant when they came into Mr. Jenkins’s store. That poor, gray face with its sunken cheeks and eyes! They bought a turkey—and with what anxious care she had selected it, testing its tenderness, balancing it on her bony hands, examining the scales with keen, narrowed eyes when it was weighed; and a quart of cranberries, a can of mince meat and a can of plum pudding, a head of celery, a pint of Olympia oysters, candy, nuts—and then the toys! She trembled with eagerness. Her husband stood watching her, smiling good-humoredly, his hands in his pockets. Mr. Jenkins indulged in some serious speculation as to where the money was coming from to pay for all this “blow-out”. He set his lips together and resolved that the “blow-out” should not leave the store, under any amount of promises, until the cash paying for it was in his cash-drawer.
Suddenly the band began to play across the street. The man threw up his head like an old war-horse at the sound of a bugle note. A fire came into his eyes; into his face a flush of excitement. He walked down to the window and stood looking out, jingling some keys in his pocket. He breathed quickly.
After a few moments he went back to his wife. Mr. Jenkins had stepped away to speak to another customer.
“Say, Molly, old girl,” he said affectionately, without looking at her, “yuh can spare me enough out o’ that tenner to git a plug o’ tobaccer for Christmas, can’t yuh?”
“W’y—I guess so,” said she slowly. The first cloud fell on her happy face.
“Well, jest let me have it, an’ I’ll run out an’ be back before yuh’re ready to pay for these here things. I’ll only git two bits’ worth.”
She turned very pale.
“Can’t yuh git it here, Mart?”
“No,” he said in a whisper; “his’n ain’t fit to chew. I’ll be right back, Molly—honest.”