It was broad daylight before he had finished his pipe and his cogitations, and placing his old polished delft pipe carefully in his buttonhole, the good saint sallied forth, leaving Johannes and his family still fast asleep in their chairs. Directly opposite the miserable abode of Johannes there dwelt a little fat Dutchman, of a reasonable competency, who had all his life manfully stemmed the torrent of modern innovation. He eschewed all sorts of paper money as an invention of people without property to get hold of those that had it; abhorred the practice of widening streets; and despised in his heart all public improvements except canals, a sneaking notion for which he inherited from old faderland. He was honest as the light of the blessed sun; and though he opened his best parlour but twice a year to have it cleaned and put to rights, yet this I will say of him, that the poor man who wanted a dinner was never turned away from his table. The worthy burgher was standing at the street door, which opened in the middle, and leaning over the lower half, so that the smoke of his pipe ascended in the clear frosty morning in a little white column far into the sky before it was dissipated.
St. Nicholas stopped his wagon right before his door, and cried out in a clear hearty voice,
“Good-morning, good-morning, mynheer; and a happy Newyear to you.”
“Good-morning,” cried the hale old burgher, “and many happy Newyears to _you_. Hast got any good fat hen turkies to sell?” for he took him for a countryman coming in to market. St. Nicholas answered and said that he had been on a different errand that morning; and the other cordially invited him to alight, come in, and take a glass of hot spiced rum, with the which it was his custom to regale all comers at the jolly Newyear. The invitation was frankly accepted, for the worthy St. Nicholas, though no toper, was never a member of the temperance society. He chose to be keeper of his own conscience, and was of opinion that a man who is obliged to sign an obligation not to drink, will be very likely to break it the first convenient opportunity.
As they sat cozily together, by a rousing fire of wholesome and enlivening hickory, the little plump Dutchman occasionally inveighing stoutly against paper money, railroads, improving streets, and the like, the compassionate saint took occasion to utter a wish that the poor man over the way and his starving family had some of the good things that were so rife on Newyear's day, for he had occasion to know that they were suffering all the evils of the most abject poverty.
“The splutterkin,” exclaimed the little fat burgher—”he is as proud as Lucifer himself. I had a suspicion of this, and sought divers occasions to get acquainted with him, that I might have some excuse for prying into his necessities, and take the privilege of an old neighbour to relieve them. But _vuur en vlammen_! would you believe it—he avoided me just as if he owed me money, and couldn't pay.”
St. Nicholas observed that if it was ever excusable for a man to be proud, it was when he fell into a state where every one, high and low, worthless and honourable, looked down upon him with contempt. Then he related to him the story of poor Johannes, and taking from his pocket a heavy purse, he offered it to the worthy old burgher, who swore he would be dondered if he wanted any of his money.
“But hearken to me,” said the saint; “yon foolish lad is the son of an old friend of mine, who did me many a kindness in his day, for which I am willing to requite his posterity. Thou shalt take this purse and bestow a small portion of it, as from thyself, as a loan from time to time, as thou seest he deserves it by his exertions. It may happen, as I hope it will, that in good time he will acquire again the competency he hath lost by his own folly and inexperience; and as he began the world a worthy, respectable citizen, I beseech thee to do this—to be his friend, and to watch over him and his little ones, in the name of St. Nicholas.”
The portly Burgher promised that he would, and they parted with marvellous civility, St. Nicholas having promised to visit him again should his life be spared. He then mounted his little wagon, and the little Dutchman having turned his head for an instant, when he looked again could see nothing of the saint or his equipage. “_Is het mogelyk!_” exclaimed he, and his mind misgave him that there was something unaccountable in the matter.
My story is already too long, peradventure, else would I describe the astonishment of Johannes and his wife when they awoke and found the benevolent stranger had departed without bidding them farewell. They would have thought all that had passed was but a dream, had not the fragments of the good things on which they regaled during the night bore testimony to its reality. Neither will I detail how, step by step, aided by the advice and countenance of the worthy little Dutchman, and the judicious manner of his dispensing the bounty of St. Nicholas, Johannes Garrebrantze, by a course of industry, economy, and integrity, at length attained once again the station he had lost by his follies and extravagance. Suffice it to say, that though he practised a rational self-denial in all his outlayings, he neither became a miser, nor did he value money except as the means of obtaining the comforts of life, and administering to the happiness of others.