Felix O'Day

by Francis Hopkinson Smith

Next came the ceiling. What Felix did to that ceiling, or rather what that ceiling did for Felix, and how it looked when he was through with it is to this very day a topic of discussion among the now scattered inhabitants of “The Avenue.” Masie knew, and so did deaf Auntie Gossburger, who often spent the day with the child. She, with Masie, had been put in charge of the china and glass department, and when the old woman had pulled up from the depths of a barrel first one red cup without a handle and then a dozen or more, and had asked what they were for, Felix had seized them with a cry of joy: “Oil cups! They fit on the tops of these church lamps. I never expected to find these! Mike! Go over to Mr. Pestler's and tell him to send me a small box of floating night-tapers—the smallest he has. Now, Tootcums, you wait and see!”

And then the step-ladder was moved up, and Mike and one of the Dutchies passed up the lamps to Felix, who drove the hooks into the rafters—twenty-two of them—and then slid down to the floor, taking in the general effect, only to clamber up again to lengthen this chain, or shorten that, so that the whole ceiling, when the cups were filled and the tapers lighted, would be a blaze of red stars hung in a firmament of dull, yellow-washed gold.

The final touch came last. This was both a surprise and a discovery. Hans had found it flattened out on the top of a big, circular table, and was about to tear it loose when Felix, who let nothing escape his vigilant eye, seized its metal handle, whereupon the mass sagged, tilted, straightened, and then rounded out into a superb Chinese lantern of yellow silk, decorated with black dragons, with only one tear in its entire circumference, and that one Auntie Gossburger darned so skilfully that nobody noticed the hole. This, Felix, after much consideration, swung to the rafter immediately over the throne, so that its mellow light should fall directly on the child's face.

Kling, while these preparations were in progress, was in a state of mind bordering on the pathetic. Felix had made him promise not to come up until the room was finished, but every few hours his head would be thrust up over the edge of the stairs, his eyes screwed up in his fat face, an expression of wonder, not unmixed with anxiety, flitting across his countenance. Then he would back down-stairs, muttering to himself all the time; his chief cause of complaint being the hiding of so many things his customers might want to buy and the displaying of so many others at which they might only want to look!

There was, however, even after the decorations seemed complete, a bare corner to be filled with something neither too big, nor too small, nor too insistent in color or form. Felix went twice over the stock, old and new, twisted and turned, and was about to give up when he suddenly called to Masie, his face lighting under the glow of a fresh inspiration:

“I have it now! Come, Tootcums, with me! Mr. Sanderson will help us out.” All of which came true; for Mr. Sanderson, ten minutes later, had bent his head close to the child's lips to hear the better, and had said: “Only two? Why, Masie, you can have the lot.” And that was how the bare corner was filled with three great palms—the biggest he had in his shop—and the grand salon of the Grande Duchesse Masie Beeswings de Kling at last made ready for her guests.

This done, Felix made a final inspection of the room, adding a touch here and there—shifting a piece of pottery or redraping the frayed end of a square of tapestry—and finding that everything kept its place in the general effect, without a single discordant note, drew Masie to a seat beside him on one of the old Venetian chests. Here, with his arms about the enthusiastic child, he laid bare the next and to him the most important number on the programme.

And in this he wrought another upheaval, one almost as great as had taken place in the room. The time-honored custom of all birthday parties entailing upon the invited the giving of presents as proof of affection, was not, he hinted gently, to be observed upon this occasion. “It is Masie who is to give the presents,” he whispered, holding her closer, “and not her guests.”

The child at first had protested. The long procession of guests coming up to hand her their gifts, and her fun next day when looking them over—knowing how queer some of them would be—had been part of her joyful anticipation, but Felix would not yield.

“You see, Masie, darling,” he coaxed, “now that you are going to be a real princess,” he was smoothing back her curls as he spoke, “you are going to be so high up in the world that nobody will dare to give you any presents. That is the way with all princesses. Kings and queens are never given presents on their birthdays unless their permission is asked, but, just because they ARE kings and queens, they give presents to everybody else. And then again, Masie, dear, if you stop to think about it, people really get a great deal more fun out of giving things than they do of having things given to them.”