How It Happened

by Kate Langley Bosher

"Any other time than Christmas!"

With a sense of demoralization it was dawning on him that he might not find her, or Carmencita, in time for Christmas, and he must find them. A great hunger for the day to be to him what it seemed to be to others possessed him feverishly, and with eyes that saw what they had never seen before he watched, as he walked, the faces of the people who passed, and in his heart crept childish longing to buy something for somebody, something that was wanted very much, as these people seemed to be doing. He had made out the checks he usually sent to certain institutions and certain parties at this season of the year for his head clerk to mail. By this time they had been received, but with them had gone no word of greeting or good will; his card alone had been inclosed. A few orders had been left at various stores, but with them went no Christmas spirit. He wondered how it would feel to buy a thing that could make one's face look as Carmencita's had looked when she made her purchase of the night before. It was a locket she had bought—a gold locket.

In a whispered confidence while in the car she had told him it was for her mother's picture. The picture used to be in her father's watch, but the watch had to be sold when he was sick, after her mother's death, and he had missed the touch of the picture so. She knew, for often she had seen him holding his watch in his hand, open at the back, where the picture lay, with his fingers on it, and sometimes he would kiss it when he thought she was out of the room. After the watch was sold the picture had been folded up in one of her mother's handkerchiefs, and her father kept it in the pocket of his coat; but once it had slipped out of the handkerchief, and once through a hole in the pocket, and they thought it was lost. Her father hadn't slept any that night. And now he could sleep with the locket around his neck. She would put it on a ribbon. Wasn't it grand? And Carmencita's hands had clasped ecstatically.

Up and down the streets he went, looking, looking, looking. The district in which he found himself was one of the poorest in the city, but the shops were crowded with buyers, and, though the goods for sale were cheap and common and of a quality that at other times would have repelled, to-day they interested. Carmencita might be among the shoppers. She had said she had a few things to get for some children—penny things—and she was possibly out, notwithstanding the snow which now was falling thick and fast.

Some time after his usual lunch-hour he remembered he must have something to eat; and, going into a dingy-looking restaurant, he sat down at a table, the only one which had a vacant seat at it, and ordered coffee and oysters. His table companion was a half-grown boy with chapped hands and a thin white face; but his eyes were clear and happy, and the piece of pie he was eating was being swallowed in huge hunks. It was his sole order, a piece of awful-looking pie. As the coffee and oysters were brought him Van Landing saw the boy look at them hungrily and then turn his eyes away.

"I beg your pardon." Van Landing, whose well-regulated life permitted of few impulses, turned to the boy. "I ordered these things"—he pointed to the steaming food—"and I don't want them. I want something else. Would you mind having them? It's a pity to throw them away."

The boy hesitated, uncertain what was meant, then he laughed. "It sure is," he said. "If you don't want them I'll help you out. I'm hollow as a hound what's been on a hunt. Good thing Christmas don't come but once a year. You can cut out lunch better'n anything else for a save-up, though. That girl over there"—he pointed his finger behind him—"ain't had nothing but a glass of milk for a month. She's got some kiddie brothers and sisters, and they're bound to have Christmas, she says. Rough day, ain't it?"

Van Landing gave another order. Had it not been for the gnawing restlessness, the growing fear, which filled him, the scene would have interested. A few days ago he would have seen only the sordid side of it, the crudeness and coarseness; but the search he was on had humanized what hitherto had only seemed a disagreeable and objectionable side of life, and the people before him were of an odd kinship. In their faces was hunger. There were so many kinds of hunger in the world. He got up, and with a nod to the boy paid his bill and went out.

Through the afternoon hours he walked steadily. Dogged determination made him keep on, just as sensitive shrinking prevented his making inquiries of others. It was silly to ask what couldn't be answered. He must have been mad the night before not to have noticed where he was going, not to have asked Carmencita her name.

By four o'clock the street-lights had been turned on, making of the dark, dingy tenements a long lane with high, unbroken walls, and on a corner he stood for a moment wondering which was the best way to go. To his left were shops; he went toward them, and each face of the children coming in or going out was scanned intently. Seeing a group pressed close to a window in which was displayed an assortment of dolls of all sorts and sizes, with peculiar clothing of peculiar colors, he went toward them, stood for a moment by their side. One of the children was the size of Carmencita.