What's-His-Name

by George Barr McCutcheon

He set up the little Christmas tree in the back parlour, assisted by Bridget and Annie, after Phoebe had gone to bed on Christmas Eve. She had urged him to read to her about Tiny Tim, but he put her off with the announcement that Santa was likely to be around early on account of the fine sleighing, and if he saw 128 that she wasn’t asleep in bed he might skip the house entirely.

The expressman, in delivering several boxes from town that afternoon, had said to his helper:—

“That little fellow that came to the door was Nellie Duluth’s husband, Mr.—Mr.––Say, look on the last page there and see what his name is. He’s a cheap skate. A dime! Wot do you think of that?” He held up the dime Harvey had given him and squinted at it as if it were almost too small to be seen with the naked eye.

Nellie sent “loads” of presents to Phoebe—toys, books, candies, fruits, pretty dresses, a velvet coat, a tiny pair of opera glasses, strings of beads, bracelets, rings—dozens of things calculated to set a child mad with delight. There were pocketbooks, handkerchiefs, squirrel stoles and muffs for each of the servants, a box of cigars for the postman, another for the milkman, and a five-dollar bill for the janitor.

There was nothing for Harvey.

He looked for a long time at the envelope containing the five-dollar bill, an odd little smile creeping into his eyes. He was the janitor, he 129 remembered. After a moment of indecision he slipped the bill into another envelope, which he marked “Charity” and laid aside until morning brought the mendicant who, with bare fingers and frosted lips, always came to play his mournful clarionet in front of the house.

Surreptitiously he searched the two big boxes carefully, inwardly hoping that she had not forgotten—nay, ignored—him. But there was nothing there, not even a Christmas card! It was the first Christmas she had....

The postman brought a small box addressed to Phoebe. The handwriting was strange, but he thought nothing of it. He thought it was nice of Butler to remember his little one and lamented the fact that he had not bought something for the little Butlers, of whom there were seven. He tied a red ribbon around the sealed package and hung it on the tree.

After it was all over he went upstairs and tried to read “Dombey & Son.” But a mist came over his blue eyes and his vision carried him far beyond the printed page. He was not thinking of Nellie, but of his old mother, who had never forgotten to send him a Christmas 130 present. Ah, if she were alive he would not be wondering to-night why Santa Claus had passed him by.

He rubbed his eyes with his knuckles, closed “Dombey & Son” for the night, and went to bed, turning his thoughts to the row of tiny stockings that hung from the mantelpiece downstairs—for Phoebe had put to use all that she could find—and then let them drift on through space to an apartment near Central Park, where Kris Kringle had delivered during the day a little packet containing the brooch he had purchased for his wife out of the money he had preserved from the sale of his watch some weeks before.