[WILLIE TUCKER.]
SHORT ACCOUNT OF HIS CHRISTMAS TRIBULATIONS.
Washingtonville, Christmas Day.
Dear Mr. Editor:—Why is it that when a fellow tries to have some fun, he always gets into trouble? Take two years ago this Christmas, for instance, when I had a notion that I'd play a little trick on old Santa Claus. My idea was to keep awake till he came down, wedge up the chimney on him, and then go out and help myself to a pair of reindeer—he'd have had enough left. Besides, I wasn't going to steal them, of course—just borrow them for a while and hitch 'em to my double ripper. Now, I call that an innocent and perfectly proper thing for any boy to do, but what was the result? A long, lank, limp, hollow stocking in the morning—and no reindeer stamping their feet and bleating in the wood-shed, either.
Well, this was two years ago, and I haven't been fooling around much about Santa Claus since. Santa Claus can drive a procession of reindeer a mile long if he wants to, and I won't touch one of them. Santa Claus is all right in his way, but I think that Captain Kidd was rather more my kind of a man. Captain Kidd wasn't much on filling anybody's stockings, but when he got alongside and grappled the other fellow there was fun—genuine, innocent fun.
And I can't see that Captain Kidd always got into trouble when he had a little fun, like a boy does now. You see, it was this way: They had a Christmas tree over at the church last night. It was a regular old-fashioned Christmas tree, which was the minister's idea. Last Sunday says he: "Of late years Christmas trees have been too much given up to children and such things. It was not that way when I was a boy up at Hurricane Centre. There were presents for everybody, old and young. Let us have a genuine, plain, old Hurricane Centre tree."
The tree was set for last night, of course, and the committees and folks and things were working on it all day. Fanny (she's my sister) and Aunt Lou were over in the afternoon stringing pop-corn, and falling off of step-ladders, and so forth. My brother Bob is home from college, and he was over too; though Fanny said he didn't do much but talk to the girls. That's just like Bob. The football season has closed, and he has got his hair cut, and kind of exposed his countenance again at last. Bob thinks he's going to be a lawyer, but if he ever tries to prosecute me when I get to be a pirate, he'll be sorry for it.
Along toward night ma asked me to run over to the church, and take a little package of things which she wanted put on the tree.
"What's in it, ma?" I asked.
"A pair of Santa Claus's reindeer for you," says ma. They're always throwing that thing up to me.
So I took the package and started. When I got there I found everybody gone home to supper except Deacon Green, who was just staying to keep the church. He took my package, and I says to him:
"Mr. Green, supper is all ready over at your house."
"How do you know?" asks he.
"I smelt it as I came along," I says. "Apple dumplings, I think."
"My, you don't say so!" says the Deacon. "I'm a good deal fond of dumplings. 'Specially with maple syrup on 'em—and plenty o' butter."
"Yes, ma'am," says I. (I always go and say "Yes, ma'am," to a man.)
"Wish I could go over and get 'em while they're hot," says he.
"I'll stay here while you go, if you'd like," I said.
"Sure you wouldn't snoop 'round the tree?"
"Yes, ma'am," says I.
So the Deacon put on his mittens and went home.
Well, it was sort of lonesome and solemnlike waiting there in that big hollow church, and so I went up and began looking at the tree. It was a big pine, all covered with beautiful things. I guess I jarred the thing a little, and the label off of somebody's present came fluttering down.
"Oh," says I to myself, "that won't do. If I don't put that back somebody will be disappointed. I'll just shin up and fix it." So up I went.
I looked a long time before I could find a package without a label on it, and then after I did find one and got it on, I saw another label on it; so it wasn't right after all. I looked around a little more and found the right one at last, but when I turned to take off the label I had put on, I couldn't for the life of me tell which of the two it was, so I just jerked off one of 'em by guess and stuck it on the present. Probably I got the wrong one—just my luck.
The tree was sort of bendy and wigglesome, and I saw I'd shaken off several more tags, so I went down and got them. I was getting a little tired of roosting up there like a Christmas bird, so I stuck the labels around sort of promiscuouslike, and probably got most of them wrong. I noticed a good many of the big parcels had small labels, and vice versa, as Bob says, so I thought while I was about it I might as well fix things up a little. So I put the big labels on the big things and—vice versa again. Some others I guess I changed without any particular rule, which, I suppose, was a bad thing to do, as my teacher says our actions should always be governed by definite and intelligent rules, but I was tired and I just stuck 'em about, hit or miss. I thought it would be kind of funny, and maybe old-fashioned and Hurricane Centre like. Besides, I wanted to be doing something—the teacher says idleness is a vice, heard her say so more'n a thousand times.
Well, after awhile I heard scrunching in the snow outside. I got down and went over and sat in our pew and tried to look just about as much like a lamb as a boy not having any wool can look.
It was Deacon Green. Says he; "Young man, you were a little mistaken about them apple dumplings. It was just a picked-up cold supper, 'cause Miranda said to-morrow was Christmas, and we could eat then."
"Then it must have been Mr. Doolittle's supper I smelt, ma'am," says I.
"Well, no matter; run along home and get yours," answered the Deacon. So I did so.
After supper we all went over to the church. I sat in the outside end of the pew because, of course, I didn't know what might happen. Well, they had singing and speaking and such stuff. Then Mr. Doty, the Superintendent of the Sunday-school, made a funny speech, with easy jokes for children, and then they began to take down the things and read 'em off to folks. The first few things on the lower branches seemed to fit all right; then Tommy Snyder's great-grandma got a pair of club skates. Folks looked surprised, but the next few things appeared to be right, and nobody said anything. Then somehow the minister got a red tin horn, and a yearling baby a pair of silver-bowed spectacles, and Mrs. Deacon Wilkie a cigar-case, right in succession. This made talk, but Mr. Doty went on. But things seemed to get worse, and two or three old gentlemen got rattle-boxes and such stuff, and a little girl got a gold-headed cane, and Tommy Snyder's poor great-grandma was called again and got a set of boxing gloves. There was a great uproar, and just then Deacon Green got a teething-ring. I saw him rise up and motion for silence. I put my hand on my stomach and says to ma,
"Ma, I don't feel well at all."
"Better run out in the vestibule and get some fresh air," says ma.
I ran. As I went out the door I heard Deacon Green saying something about me. The air seemed to do me good, so I staid out. While I was about it I thought I might as well run home and go to bed, so I did so.
The next morning at breakfast there was some talk. I didn't succeed in resembling a lamb so much as I had expected. But pa stood by me as usual. Then, when it quieted down, I happened to think of something, and I said,
"Ma, wasn't there anything on that tree for me?"
"Well," says ma, "I had understood from trustworthy sources that there was to be a good-sized brass steam-engine on it for you, but the engine was read off to a boy who lives over at Clear Brook, so I suppose I must have been mistaken. Anyhow, I didn't say anything, and he went off with it."
There seemed to be something wrong with my buckwheat cake, and I didn't eat any more of it. I concluded I wasn't much hungry, and left the table.
"Don't mind, Willie," said Bob, "you've got your reindeer yet."
That's the way it goes, you see, when a boy tries to have a little harmless, innocent amusement. A pirate ship can't come along looking for recruits any too soon to suit.
Yours truly,
Willie Tucker.
[A MODERN LABYRINTH.]
BY WALTER CLARK NICHOLS.
Clickety-click! click! click! go the levers in the narrow brick house at six o'clock. Rapidly yet surely five alert men, clad in blue railroad blouses and trousers, rush about from handle to handle.