“Merry, merry—O! so merry,” repeated the little woman. “Here we be—all the family.”
Titus stood aside and blinked his eyes, while the Judge walked by him.
“For warmth, sir, an’ comfort, an’ good times, we’re all in the kitchen,” said Mrs. Tingsby. “Gen’l’men,” and she turned to her boarders with a ridiculous little bow, “this is the jedge that tooked Bethany. Jedge, here be my children,” and she indicated half a dozen poorly dressed but bright looking children who got up from the floor and from cracker boxes to make their best bow to the company.
“Yes, we be all here,” exclaimed Mrs. Tingsby, a-huggin’ the fire, “which is a good one if I does say so myself. There’s Harry Ray, the express boy, Harry an’ his cough, which I’m glad to say is a mite better owin’ to peppermint tea or his half holiday, I don’t know which; Matthew Jones an’ his poor eyes, but he aint grumblin’, because it’s Christmas; an’ old man Fanley, glad to rest his weary legs from parcel-carryin’—aint you, Fanley. An’ Barry Mafferty, which is a temp’rary boarder.”
The Judge looked round him. From the bottom of his heart he pitied them. At first sight it seemed to him the height of misery to be crouching round a medium-sized fire, breathing an atmosphere so redolent of goose, with no comfortable seats; and yet in a few minutes he modified his opinion.
Two of the few chairs in the kitchen had been given to him and to Titus. As they sat in the shabby but clean kitchen he reflected that it was warm, that these people all looked contented, that with their dingy clothes they would certainly not be happy in rooms like his own.
“It is very comfortable here,” he said, drawing off his gloves and rubbing his hands, “very comfortable after the cold outside.”
“If only the landlords would give the poor better houses,” he continued, reflecting, “they would not be so uncomfortable. Really, they are spared some of the worries of life that we better off ones have to endure.”
But he must listen to Mrs. Tingsby. “We’ve had such a good Christmas,” she was exclaiming, “such a good one. Look-a-here, an’ here,” and she took from one child a tiny doll, from another a bag of candy, from another a whistle, and proudly exhibited them.
Needless to say, the presents were from the boarders, who somewhat sheepishly averted their faces while she was praising their generosity to the Judge.