CHAPTER VII

SANTA CLAUS

Father McGowan, holding a cassock high about his black-clad legs, stood in the back yard of the rectory grounds. The back yard looked like those photographs entitled, "Rude shelters for the soldiers," or "Huts built by the South Australian Light Horse Brigade."

All over the brown lawn were small shacks. Some of them made of brick, some of old and weather-beaten boards, and some of these two with a smattering of very ex and sticky roofing mixed in. Father McGowan smiled. Mrs. Fry looked out of the window. Her lips tightened.

A small boy emerged from one of these affairs. Emerged on his stomach, wiggling out.

"Father McGowan," he yelled, "we got a secret passage!"

"No!" said Father McGowan enthusiastically, "No!"

Another door opened. Another boy came wiggling forth. "_We_ got a secret place to hide things in, in ours!" he said in a sing-song, mine-is-better-than-yours tone.

"Aw----!" said the first disparagingly.

Father McGowan laughed. A boy came swaggering across the lawn. He whistled, "In My Harem." He touched his hat to the priest.

"I'm going to get a case of pop," he said loudly, "an' drink it here. Mom, she gimme a candle, and Pop sez I can stay out 'til nine." After this he was instantly the centre of an awed and admiring group.

Mrs. Fry opened the door. "The 'phone wants yuh," she said shortly to Father McGowan. Father McGowan went in with evident reluctance. He wanted to hear more of the case of pop, which he knew would narrow down to two bottles.

After he'd passed through the kitchen, Mrs. Fry spoke again to her sister who sat steaming by the stove. "_He's_ like that," she said, a great love, yet vast contempt, showing in her tone. "He lets all the kids around build shacks in the backyard, and even gets 'em stuff to build with!"

"What fer?" asked the steaming one. Her bewilderment was complete.

"Oh," said Mrs. Fry, "he sez something about its bein' necessary to a boy's soul to build something and tear it down. An' pretend things that ain't. One day they calls that mess of rubbish the wilds of Sieberia, an' the next an Indian camp. An' _he_, he gets right out an' chases around with 'em. He's busted his glasses twice this month." Mrs. Fry sighed. "I kicks," she went on, "and then he sez, 'Mrs. Fry, I'm sorry, but the fact is, an aunt brought me up, awfully good woman, too, but too neat. I never pounded, and a boy needs to pound.' Then he sez, 'Now if there is anything you need for the kitchen that I can get you, Mrs. Fry, I'd be glad to.' An' what can I do? I lead an awful life because of them young rapscallions, but _he_ can't see it!"

"Well, I'll be beat!"

Mrs. Fry poured out a cup of coffee and pushed it toward her guest. "Ain't sugar high?" she said as she dumped in two lumps.

"You bet," answered her guest. "Does _he_ set and study much?" she questioned. _He_ was very interesting. Mrs. Fry drew a long breath. "He don't get no time to set," she answered. "He hardly has a chance to eat half the time besides being pestered by them kids. I never know when he'll be on time for meals. Did I tell yuh about the bath-tub?" she questioned.

The steaming shook her head.

"_It has two ally-gaters in it!_" said Mrs. Fry with emphasis.

"My Gawd!"

"Yes, one of these here kids got 'em sent him from Florida, or some furrin port, an' his mother, being a sensible woman, wouldn't have 'em near. Well, the kid comes bawlin' to Father McGowan (they always do), an' he sez, 'Now, Jimmy, don't cry. You can put 'em in my bath-tub; I only bathe once a day, and I can use a tin one. Mrs. Fry has her own bath-tub on the third floor, so she won't care.' I did, but what kin yuh do? I sez, 'I won't enter that room with them rep_tiles_ in it fer to clean it.' He sez, troubled like, 'Well, Mrs. Fry, I'll do it, or get one of the boys to. I don't mind.' Them kids messing around there. Can yuh see the way _they'd_ clean it!"

"Ain't that fierce?"

"Yes, an' he don't care so much fer it, either. He sez he _could_ hope they'd die or summer'd come. (We're going to have a pond in the backyard--to run into the cellar!) Yuh oughta see that room after he's bathed in that there tin tub. All that's missin' is Noah and Shem--we got the animiles."

There was the click of crutches in the dining room. The door opened. A small boy appeared.

"Come in, dearie," said Mrs. Fry. Her tone was softened.

"What's his name?" asked the visitor.

"He don't know," answered Mrs. Fry. "He was in the hospital one time, real sick, and lately he don't remember so good. 'Father McGowan calls him 'Sebastiano.' Want a cooky, dearie?" The boy nodded, and smiled.

Cecilia had had her friend Marjory to lunch. It had gone rather well. She recalled it as she stood looking out of a heavily glassed window into a frosted street. She, herself, had set the table. The napkins had not been set up in tumblers. The fibroid tumor vase was quite absent. There had been valley lilies in a flat bowl for the centrepiece.... She had disposed of the blue glass butter dish by dropping it. Cecilia felt strangely sad as she did it. The blue glass butter dish had once seemed so very lovely.... "Are they giving me anything to take your place?" she questioned, as it shattered on the floor. Then she called Norah, and listened to her laments as she gathered up the pieces. She had the feeling of untruth added to her little sadness.

As yet nothing had taken the place of blue glass butter dishes for small Cecilia. She still preferred rhinestone hair-pins, and French-heeled shoes to their plainer sisters. Beauty had been taken away and none substituted, at least none that she enjoyed. The only thing she really cared for was the dragging of her newly acquired French in her talk. She did this often with the proud feeling that it was what her mother had wished.

Jeremiah had said, on meeting Marjory, "Pleased to meet yuh, mam," and Cecilia had broken in with, "I love papa so much, Marjory, you must too." She had hardly known why she had made this defiant and sudden declaration. Johnny had been much impressed with Cecilia's guest. So much so that his misery was acute when Jeremiah related the incident of the brick throwing.

"I sez to him, 'Yuh can lay yer own bricks an' here's one to begin with!'" Jeremiah had said with his customary chuckle, that chuckle that always came with his proud remembrance.

"I think that was exceedingly clever of you, Mr. Madden," Marjory had replied. Cecilia had smiled on Marjory with the smile of an angel, she had also laid her hand on her father's. Johnny had squirmed.

Cecilia gazed out of the window. The air looked cold. She wondered whether she would ever get the chance to thank that Mr. Keefer Stuyvesant Twombly for those lovely flowers? They had come just at the right time. He was wonderful, as the girls said, and "ravishing," but better, he was nice. There was a scuffle at the door, Norah's voice was heard: "Now mind the _eee_-lectric sign!" she said sharply. Cecilia knew that the tree was coming in.

Late that evening Jeremiah opened the door of the pink and gold "parlour."

"Santa Claus has been here and went," he said mysteriously to Cecilia and Johnny, who sat on the stairs, "an' he's did good by yuh!"

"Now remember!" said Cecilia to Johnny, with a stern look. Johnny had been told that his disbelief in Santa Claus was not to be expressed. They scrambled up. Cecilia stopped in the door. The tree was a mass of silver and glittering lights. It was really very lovely. Mr. Madden's tastes were well suited to trimming a Christmas tree.

"Showy like, an' nothing cheap or old lookin'!" he said, as he surveyed it with proud eyes. Cecilia went toward a table on which her gifts were spread out. First, she saw a phonograph with a morning glory horn.... By it was a pink velvet box, strapped in silver. "Jewels," was written in a neat, spencerian engraving on one spot of the silver banding. There was a mother of pearl brush and comb and glass, bound in wiggly gold.

"They are lovely, Papa!" said Cecilia. "And _just_ what I wanted!"

"Looka here!" whispered Jeremiah. He pulled her toward the light the tree threw and took from his pocket a small box. He opened it slowly. Cecilia saw a chain and pendant that would have made a very good showing on the Christmas tree itself. It was plainly built for one of the rhinoceros family. It had seemed to dislike showing any partiality in gems. There was a fair smattering of all jewels present.

"Three hunderd dollars!" breathed Jeremiah Madden. His eyes shone, and he breathed quickly. "Celie," he said, "it ain't too good fer yuh! There ain't nothing I wouldn't do fer yuh!"

"I know, dear," answered the small Cecilia, "but you shouldn't. It is too much. You have made me very happy." She turned away. There was a sudden smarting beneath her eyelids.... She hated the school that had taught her a quiet manner, and to see blue glass butter dishes as a visitation rather than a glory.

"That ain't _all_!" said Jeremiah. He took hold of her arm, and led her to the other side of the room. "Throw on the lights, Johnny!" he called loudly. Cecilia felt him tremble. The lights snapped on with a too white glare. Jeremiah and Cecilia stood before a picture over which was thrown a cloth. Jeremiah drew it aside.

"It was did from a tintype," said Jeremiah softly. He looked on the face of his Irish wife. Her lips were painted a brazen carmine. Her cheeks glowed like the stage ladies' of the billboards. Around her neck were three ropes of huge pearls.

"He threw in the pearls," explained Jeremiah in a voice that shook a little, "an' fancied her up some, but them eyes,--it's your maw, Celie. Your maw that died in a two-room flat." With the last words Jeremiah had turned away. His shoulders had a limp droop. The happiness of the evening had faded.

"What's in this box?" asked Cecilia, unsteadily. It was a hat box and stood beneath the new portrait.

"Her present," answered Jeremiah. "The present I give her. Look at it, Celie. Ain't it pretty? I picked it."

Cecilia opened the box. She drew out a large, flopping hat. It was trimmed with pink roses.

The next day when Father McGowan was all ready to start for the Madden house, there was commotion in the wilds of _Sie_beria. It had been reported the day before that one of the "guys" had smoked a Piedmont, and Father McGowan, finding this so, had had to dust him mildly with a hickory cane, hung on the back porch for that purpose.

He disliked doing this, and smoked for a good hour afterward to soothe his nerves. Mrs. Fry had watched the chastising with pleased eyes, but then, on going to the bathroom, all happiness had vanished, for one of them rep_tiles_ had crawled out of the tub. She had dropped her scrubbing cloths, and disappeared screaming.

Father McGowan had been all ready to start. He had found his hat (which had the most mysterious way of disappearing), and with an ashamed expression, he'd put a small box in his pocket.

Then the wilds of _Sie_beria had demanded attention.

"Them young devils," Mrs. Fry had said, with a bob of her head backward. "They are raising Cain! Something's wrong." She went off muttering. She still cherished and resented the encounter with the rep_tile_. Father McGowan went toward _Sie_beria. It was one of the few times in his life that he hadn't wanted to.

"_Now_ what?" he called from the back porch. A scream was the only answer. It came from one of the brick dwellings. The chastised of yesterday, Father McGowan saw going quickly over the fence.

"Oh, drat!" said Father McGowan. There were wilder howls from the brick mansion. Father McGowan went toward it. He looked for the door, then he chuckled softly, for the door was entirely gone. He took off his gloves and began to pull out the bricks.

"Walled in," he muttered.

"Lemme out! Lemme out!" came from within, in muffled tones. Then with the opening Father McGowan had made, and with the advent of light, the screams dissolved into pathetic sobs.

"When I git him!" came in moist tones. A small boy wiggled out. He had a paper covered book in his hands. "He done it," explained the boy, between sniffs, "while I was a-readin' in the secret chamber. _He_ done it. When I git him! I'll smash him! I mighta starved!" he ended pathetically.

"Well," said Father McGowan, "that is a shame! Won't you come have a piece of pie now? You must be hungry."

The boy nodded. He followed Father McGowan toward the house. "He done it," he went on, "because I told on him fer smoking. I thought I _oughta_." The sufferer's tone was pious. "My nerves is shook up," he said when they reached the porch. "I was afraid I'd starve. There's pictures in our physiologies of starving Cubans--they ain't so nice.

"Mrs. Fry," said Father McGowan, "we do need a piece of pie. Could you find us some?" Mrs. Fry muttered and went to the refrigerator. Out on the back fence the chastised called, "Yi! Yi!" A note expressing scorn. He added, "Cry baby! Cry baby!" The cry baby turned and exhibited a piece of pie. The chastised relaxed into a pained silence.

"Come here!" called Father McGowan. The boy slid from the fence and came slinking toward him. "Mrs. Fry saw you smoking," said Father McGowan. "I never listen to what you tell of each other. Here's a piece of pie for you." He looked at his watch and added in a perfunctory way, "You shouldn't have walled him in."

"I ought to have given you a Rosary," said Father McGowan. He still looked guilty, but happily so. Cecilia stood before a mirror, looking at a dainty little chain and pendant, which she'd clasped about her throat.

"I know you ought, Father McGowan, dear," she answered, "but I'm _so_ glad you didn't! It's _so_ beautiful!"

She gasped happily. Father McGowan smiled. "Papa gave me one," she said. "It--it is, that is, I love it, but I'll wear this more." She looked into Father McGowan's understanding eyes.

"I am learning," she said, "but I learned things before I went to school that I shall never forget, and that I never want to forget."

Jeremiah came in.

"You give her that?" he asked in a pleased voice. "Well! But have you saw the one I give her? _Three_ hunderd dollars! Get it, Celie, and then play us 'The Shepherd Boy.'" Celie vanished.

White-clad nurses flitted about the halls of Jeremiah Madden's house. There was a dead silence, and upstairs that druggy-sick smell.

Cecilia had been very ill. She was better, but still sick enough to keep Jeremiah anxious. He hovered about the house almost forgetting bricks, and wearing a collar all the time, as he did on Sundays. It had begun with a cold, then a cough, which (through Celia's standing on the curb, better to view a gentleman down the street who was interestingly drunk) had turned to pneumonia on both sides.

She had gone to bed protesting that she felt very well, but that her breath was not acting quite right. Then she had grown so very, very sick that she had forgotten time, life and even Jeremiah of the bricks.

Those days had been rather dreadful for Jeremiah.... He had taken to sitting just outside her door on a very upright chair. He turned the pages of "Ridpath's History of the World." He was trying to "educate himself up to Celie." ... However, he missed a great many of the pictures and only got as far as Volume One.

Each time a trim nurse would step from Cecilia's door, he would cough to get his voice in shape, and then whisper gratingly: "Excuse me, Missis, but how is she?"

"She is doing well," the white one would answer, in a tone of thin sincerity. Then Jeremiah would go back to Ridpath, miserable, and unconvinced. Once in a while he would hear Cecilia's high, little voice--"Keefer, the butler!" she repeated again and again one day. She said it in gasps, but somehow got out the words. The effort in her voice had cut Jeremiah's heart, but the words had brought a proud smile.

"Associatin' with butlers!" he whispered. "_Ain't_ she gettin' fine?"

Then Cecilia moaned of butter dishes, blue ones. Jeremiah had left his post and Ridpath's History long enough to go shopping. He bought her three butter dishes. Two of them had covers. The third boasted of a curling handle, on which perched a dove and a cupid, on a spray of something that looked like spinach in the crude state. Cecilia had been very pleased with them. She had looked on them, said, "T-thank you, _dearest_!" and then cried gently, the tears slipping down her face with pathetic regularity. She cried all that afternoon.

"I'm not good enough for you!" she gasped, "but I love you, and butter dishes!"