Chapter 7

Around this collation--aroused by the signal, for they had been idly waiting before--moved two pairs of hands with loving attention. The cloth was resmoothed, the knives and forks straightened, a brace of mealy potatoes was emptied on the two plates that awaited them, and at last a ruddy slice of beefsteak was deposited beside and oozed through them its savoriness. This last climax was reached just as the door opened, and the two pairs of hands speedily transferred themselves to the duty--no very arduous one--of helping David and Dolly out of their wraps.

And then, with many caresses and kisses and cries of "Take this side, father, where the coals are bright!" or "Put your feet here and get them good and warm, poor Little Scout!" then, when thick flying questions and travellings to the one end of the room for things that were not wanted, and excursions to the other end of the room for things that were wanted; when the chairs were drawn up; when the grateful old man and his little daughter, with those tender hands over their mouths to stifle the gratitude they struggled to utter, were duly seated at the table, and when the kettle was singing its approval in the corner, then, only,--when all these preliminaries were gone through with,--did the possessors of the hands that devised them seat themselves on a low wooden settee opposite the table and enjoy the zest and delight they had ministered to.

Good nature and tender hearts, pale faces and cheerful eyes, honest red hands and neatly bound-up hair have never been faithfully reproduced in a state of print and paper, much less in imagination, and, indeed, how can anything so buxom and comely, even if the plainest in dress, be expected to be? It is, therefore, needless to say that the twin daughters of David, namely, Molly and Polly Dubbs, being all that is here set down, should have been seen in all their kindliness to be truly known, and no other form of introduction would do them full justice.

Molly was the counterpart of Polly in all respects save height. She was a very little taller than Polly, and a fortunate thing it had been for all concerned that she was so. Else, consider the vexation of the measles and other diseases essential to youth. Why, in their quandary which to begin on, they almost missed the twins altogether as it was. Consider the complexity of young lovers who should pour into the ears of Polly passionate adjectives intended solely to captivate the heart of Molly; and, most important of all, consider the conflict of choice which would have disquieted the soul of Mr. Jacob Tripple and at last driven him to the alternatives of suicide or bigamy.

But all these dangers had been averted by the provisions of Nature, and the twins, who had supped, for economic reasons, earlier in the evening, sat beaming on while David and little Dolly heartily devoured the supper.

David, looking up now for the first time, in the interval of a mouthful swallowed and a mouthful threatened, espied a bowery wreath of holly that hung around a picture of General Washington in the act of crossing a dark, green river Delaware in a court dress of red and breeches of yellow, surrounded on all sides by ice and officers in rainbow uniforms, and, as this was the only adornment of a rather bare room, it is no wonder it caught his eye.

"Why, who's been a-brightening up the gen'ral so Christmas-like?" he exclaimed.

"We did, father! Leastwise it was Polly's present," said Molly.

"And who may be a-sending presents to Polly now?" asked David, with a twinkle in his eye that had seen better days but none kindlier. "It wasn't young Cuffy over at the baker's, nor Jake Tripple, now, was it?"

He looked at Polly for an answer, whereat she stretched her arm along the back of the settee and let fall her hand on Molly's shoulder with a punch which was intended as punishment for the giggles her sister struggled to confine in her mouth with both hands; but which, in spite of her, bubbled over and attacked David, and then, with a blush, Polly muttered,--

"It wasn't young Cuffy at all, and I hate his loafy, little face, and I hate----"

"Not Jacob Tripple! No, no, not good Jake Tripple?" said David, reprovingly.

"I didn't say that, father!" she exclaimed. "He's your good old friend, and how could I hate him? He came in just before leaving for the day, and asked for you--what, made him think you were home I can't tell, for it was long before your time--and asked for you, and left the wreath for--for--me."

The hem of her long checkered apron then needed close scrutiny and folding for some unknown purpose, and this duty diverted her thoughts from the subject, but she turned to Dolly, who enjoyed this banter in her own quiet little way, which seldom rippled into a loud laugh, for her own quiet little face was too pale and too pinched to invite such freebooters. "Come, come, Little Scout," she said. "Is she warm now, and were the rations good, and did she meet Kriss Kingle on his cold journey (with a caress of her pale little cheeks) with heaps of warm dresses, and heaps of pretty dolls, and heaps of sweetmeats too big to carry himself, so he asked her to carry some home to help him! Did she? (with another caress.) And would our Little Scout be sorry if he didn't come himself to look after them and----"

"Ah, that reminds me!" said David, quite audibly for him, and rising from the table with knife and fork still in hand.

"What reminds you, father?" asked the twins, in chorus.

"Why, coming home!" said David, not very intelligibly.

"What coming home?" again from the chorus, in expectant attitude.

"Why, Tom, I told you!" which he hadn't done at all, but as by this time he was deep in the cupboard, where his overcoat hung, and as his voice was a little more muffled than usual, it was useless to argue the point, so the chorus loudly exclaimed,--

"Tom?"

"Yes, yes, yes!" from David, faintly and rather testily, as he had groped through his old coat, and had successively dropped the knife and fork, reeking with gravy, into the inside and outside pockets.

"To be sure! Tom coming home and I clean forgot it, what with the cold and the surprises," he said again, emerging with the knife and fork in one hand and a letter in the other. "Here it is. He'll be home to-morrow, he says, God willin', and eat our turkey with us. Poor Tom, poor boy! He's been away so long he's forgot Griffin and hard times, or he wouldn't say that!"

"Tom! Be home! and to-morrow?"--interruption of chorus as it reaches for the letter, opens and reads it aloud--Dolly being lifted in the sturdy arms of Molly to look over.

David, meanwhile, overcome by the toothsomeness of beefsteak, falls to again, while the others dance a sort of fandango, and turn up the rag carpet, and rattle the dishes on the dresser, and lift Dolly high in the air to the improvised tune of "Tom's coming home! Tom's coming home! Tom's coming home to-morrow!"

"It's another mouth to feed, but it's hard to wish the poor boy back to Californy again," huskily said David; then he exclaimed, as the noise increased, "Hey dey! Why, you'll spill the coffee next, and cave in the walls, too, in a minute, and then there'll be no home for Tom to come to!"

This was good humoredly added as the final swing was given to the dance, which brought the twins holding Dolly aloft in their arms laughing and panting on the settee.

"But tell us, father, is he coming home for good? He don't say so in the letter," asked Dolly, and all leaned forward to hear his answer.

"Coming home for good?" mused David. "Yes, he's coming home for good, I hope; but I'm fearful he'll find little beside the good in his sisters' hearts."

"Poor Tom," said Dolly, with far-away eyes, "he's had a weary life of it in the mines, I guess, poor fellow."

"Yes, yes," said David, "and that's what makes it harder that we can't greet him with a good Christmas to-morrow. Well, well, it'll be a delight to see my poor boy again, hard times or no hard times, and we'll be as cheerful as we can be and are now, thanks to my good girls," and here he arose from the table, and, seating himself at the fire, opened a morning paper that he had found in the waste-basket in Mr. Griffin's counting-house (and very worthless it must have been to be found there!) in which, through the kind offices of a massive old pair of spectacles, he was soon absorbed.

And now, while the Little Scout--in fulfilment of her established character--plays the spy on sundry crumbs that slink from notice under the table, and while the twins, too busy to talk, wash the dishes and dispose them in a glistening row along the dresser, and, while David opens the paper and plods up and down it, column by column, like a ploughman furrow by furrow up and down a field, and with almost as much toil; and while the ancient clock on the shelf over the stove and under the motley General Washington ticks loud enough to be heard above the clinking dishes and simmering kettle; and while the table, divested of its cloth and exhibiting a stained and blistered old back, is glad enough to avoid attention by being stowed away in the corner; while the pleasant spirits of domesticity that come only at the call of good men, and good wives, and good sons, and good daughters, but resist the imperious beckonings of the wealthiest hands, and wing on over their roofs to lowlier, and scantier, and purer habitations--while the pleasant spirits of domesticity and kindliness throng invisibly into the room, and David Dubbs reads stray scraps from his paper to his daughters, grouped near the fire at his feet, we must softly withdraw and leave them to the care of coming Christmas dreams.

III.

Christmas morning had opened brightly with David Dubbs. The sun, preceded down the court by hustling winds that knocked at every citizen's door and demanded admittance for their oncoming master, had left at each house a gift of golden cheerfulness. The sky above was so blithe and blue that it smiled down at even so insignificant a crack as David Dubbs's court must have appeared to it; and the cold was a jolly and snappish cold.

The twins and David's Little Scout were as merry as the Christmas chimes they lingered and listened to, and not the daintiest dinner that Mr. Cuffy (and that gentleman held the subject somewhat in mind, too, on Polly's account) could have delivered at their door would have added one jot of happiness to their abundance. David's poor old back bent under the stress of poverty that would permit him no indulgences for them--all the more dear on that day; but, used to loving self-denial, they never missed what they so little desired, and so far were they from giving it a thought, that if David had spoken out what he so wilfully turned over and over in his mind, that would have given them far more pain and anxiety. Mr. Tripple was early in his shop, presumptively to attend to some forgotten duties, but, as he did not pay very active attention to anything but carefully tying up a square box in white paper, and as he did pay very active attention to what went on up-stairs, at the same time exhibiting no hurry to get home to dinner, David, who had, towards noon, gone around the corner with Polly to make some little purchases of groceries before the stores closed, dropped in on his way back and invited Mr. Tripple up-stairs. Mr. Tripple at first firmly refused, and said, "Very much obliged, Dave, but couldn't think of it. Indeed not. They'd 'spect me at home, ye know, Dave." Whereupon Miss Polly added her entreaties, and said he needn't expect anything very much, but if he would walk up they would be very happy to have him. Mr. Tripple would have walked up--and, indeed, wanted very much to walk up--at first, but his extreme awkwardness, aggravated by holiday clothes of a tight cut and by a paper collar bent above his coat like a scimetar, and almost as sharp and glistening as that weapon, impelled him to do violence to his wishes in order to appear calm--under _her_ eyes--and to deceive them politely as to his real desire. But now, lured on by the siren voice of Polly, he consented to go up "a little while" (which meant all the afternoon), and taking the white box under his arm he locked the shop-door and followed them up the creaking stairs.

Arrived in the room and relieved of hat and coat, Mr. Tripple bowed mysteriously to Dolly, and, intrusting her with the box, whispered,--"Go and hand that to sister Polly, little un." Polly, receiving it from her, exclaimed in surprise,--

"For me, Mr. Tripple?"

"Yes, miss," he replied, growing red and smiling broadly, "a little something for Christmas, that's all."

Polly opened the box and extracted a pasteboard plane with some artificial shavings pasted upon it, which, when lifted apart, discovered a heap of sweetmeats. Dolly and Molly, looking on, exclaimed, "Why, Mr. Tripple, what a surprise!" and Polly blushingly added, "So very unexpected!"

Mr. Tripple grew redder and nervously crossed his legs, saying, "I thought 'twould be kind a appropriate to the trade, you know, and so I just fetched it up, and----"

Then Polly, seeing his embarrassment, called on David and the rest to come and help themselves, and there was good humor and laughing until the twins darted away to got dinner, which was soon prepared, for there was little enough to get, and all invited to sit up to the table.

All were duly in their places, and David had, in accordance with Christmas custom, offered grace. Mr. Tripple and the girls were slowly raising their bowed heads, when a loud knock announced a visitor, and hastened the raising of heads to an unseemly hurry.

"Tom!" all exclaimed.

Molly hurried down-stairs, and the rest rushed to the stair-landing, where, in a moment, they received, not Tom, but a large, square basket that emitted a very fragrant smell of roasted fowl, in the arms of the returning Molly. Once in the room, the lid was off in a twinkling, and out came a sizable plate, enveloped in dainty, clean napkins, which, being removed in layers, exhibited, in all its brown deliciousness, a huge turkey, just done to a turn.

The party gathered around in pleased wonder, and as Molly threw the napkins into the basket a card fell on the floor. She picked it up and, astonished, read, "Emanuel Griffin."

"What!" said David, snatching it and reading it aloud to himself, "Emanuel Griffin. So it is, and no mistake!" and then he burst out, "Hurrah! hurrah for Griffin! I knew he couldn't forget us this year!" His poor old face was almost young again, and his voice,--why, it could actually be heard as he ran on: "Why, there never was such a year for the china trade, Tripple, and how could he forget me? Jacob Tripple, your hand! A kiss, Little Scout! Why, your old father's 'most young again, and his good girls shall dine like other good girls, after all! How very thoughtful of Griffin to send it in the nick of time, too. Come, sit up again before it gets cold, and I wish we had something as hot to drink Griffin's health in. Why, I believe I could sing a song again if we had something hot. I do, indeed!"

So he ran on in his childish delight at the thought of being remembered, and at the far more grateful thought that his beloved daughters were to share the gift with him.

When he had ceased, all turned to Molly and asked in one breath who had left it. When the clamor slackened, she replied, "Why, young Cuffy from the baker's, and all he said was, 'David Dubbs,--to be sent--card inside,' and then kissing his hand, and crying 'Love to her,' meaning I don't know who," with a smirk at Polly, "he jumped aboard his wagon and flew away down the court."

Never was a turkey enjoyed so much, and never had a turkey better deserved it.

Mr. Tripple grew bland and talkative under its juicy influence. He even winked at Polly occasionally, and one time actually chucked her under the chin. She sat next to him, remarking that if he had his way she should live forever on turkey and sugar-plums. David ventured to say that that course of diet would be pretty indigestive, whereupon Mr. Tripple fondly suggested, as he gazed into her eyes, "How would love do for a substitute, then?" implying that "his way" would supply that abstract edible in equally large doses.

David dryly added "Starvation," and thereupon Polly covered her face with her hands, but left open a laughing eye at Molly, and Mr. Tripple looked boldly around the board as a man who had said a very bright thing indeed, after which survey he broke out into a not very comfortable laugh. All the rest laughed, too, then, and such good humor prevailed that nothing seemed amiss, and Mr. Tripple's inexperience was kindly overlooked.

But now the turkey was fast becoming skeletonized, and the good company was fast becoming the reverse. The jollity was increasing and the serious intentions of Mr. Tripple were impending and ready to fall into open profession on the slightest encouragement. The Little Scout's pinched and pale face--sweet and uncomplaining, even through hunger and want--smiled gently and less sadly as it leaned in Molly's arms, and, looking up, she said,--

"Poor father! How quiet you were last night when we were walking home. I knew you were thinking about to-day and the poor dinner. How kind it was of good Mr. Griffin. I'd like to thank him myself, father!"

"And so you shall, Little Scout," said David, gayly, bending over and kissing her with boyish contempt of aged bones; "and so you shall, and I make no doubt he'll be glad to see you, too, Deary."

The clock in a neighboring steeple, simultaneously with its ancient kinsman on the shelf, and followed by incoming echoes of a score of others, struck one; but the company little heeded that, and the conviviality was far from diminishing when another summons rattled the street door, and again all exclaimed "There's Tom!" and crowded to the landing as before.

Polly this time tripped down and came back in a moment with only a letter, saying,--

"A young man, father, with this letter for Mr. Griffin. It's addressed to his store, but he said it was important, and, knowing you lived here, he depended on you to deliver it at once."

"Has he gone?" said David, grasping it.

"Yes, father," replied Polly, "right off."

Here was a pitiable state of affairs indeed. David Dubbs, aroused from the joyful celebration of his Christmas dinner and from the midst of this cosey party and sent off across the river to his master's house with a miserable letter and by a miserable young man (and if delivering letters when every other well-intentioned man is eating his turkey isn't miserable, why what is it?). Sent off on a graceless errand for nothing, perhaps. But his kind employer, who had done so much for his comfort and joy that very day, must not suffer by his neglect, and off he must post; that was imperative. Mr. Tripple offered his services when David had started down-stairs, and when there was no chance of his turning back, but David said, "No, no, Tripple; you just stay and keep the girls company till I get back, and that'll be enough for you to attend to. Good-by, girls. Good-by, Little Scout; if it wasn't so cold, she should go too." And off he trudged, as patient, and cheerful, and proud of his master's attention and of his mission, too, now he had fully set out, as many a younger and better dressed man would have been.

IV.

When Emanuel Griffin, Esq., leaving the dark little street wherein stood his warehouse and wherein very much of his life and very little of his money was spent--which latter fact had, however, no merely local application but was of a general nature--when, to resume, Emanuel Griffin, Esq., buttoning up his overcoat and, leaving the dark little street, turned the next corner among the mountainous stores and looked vexedly around for a car to bear him to his home across the river, and rattled his keys in his pocket, and nearly hummed a tune in his impatience, suddenly, as the car appeared like a new planet, and with the easy-going motions of a planet in its ascent had nearly reached him--suddenly a thought of something forgotten flashed through his mind, and the violence of its reaction turned him completely around and sent him in a precipitous hurry in the opposite direction, namely, in that which David Dubbs and his little daughter had pursued but a short time before.

"Pshaw!" he muttered, and looked as if he would like to add something a great deal stronger. "That's what I forgot to tell David; but Mrs. G. 'll never forget it, nor forgive it, either, if I don't attend to it before I get home." So he turned up his collar, and rubbed his ears, and hurried on to keep warm.

His destination proved to be a fancy bakery in the neighborhood of David Dubbs's house. The pavement in front of it at that hour and season, owing to holiday orders, was sending up warm steam from the oven beneath, and a fragrant and appetizing smell of hot bread and browning cakes pervaded the street. It was a large establishment of the kind, and besides its legitimate line of bread-baking, took charge of the cooking and preparing of dinners for ladies of limited domestic conveniences in fashionable life. Heedless of the delicious scents which had attracted several men with greedy eyes to linger at the window and devour in fancy--a process which left them hungrier than ever--the heaps of loaves and cakes on the counter within; heedless of the supplicating looks the men turned on him, and of the confidential attempts of one or two at a begging whisper (but his hurry was in nowise chargeable with that inattention); heedless of everything but finishing his errand and getting home, Mr. Griffin pushed through the crowd in the store, and, reaching the counter, beckoned to a light-haired, light-eyed, and red-cheeked youth, in a blue tie and black waistcoat that, through constant friction with loaves and flour-barrels, had become of a light pepper-and-salt pattern, and hurriedly said,--

"I want a turkey, Cuffy, of about fifteen or twenty pounds, cooked and sent to my house by one o'clock to-morrow."

"Can't do it, Mr. Griffin," said the young man, who knew him and had bowed as he came up.

"Can't do what?" exclaimed Mr. Griffin, with surprise and dismay.

"Can't send it out," returned the young man, firmly.

"Oh!" said Mr. Griffin, relieved; "I thought you meant that you couldn't prepare it!"

"No, sir," commenced the young man. "You see, sir, Mr. Griffin, it's so late in the day that all our teams is ordered fur to-morrow at that time, and so is our boys, but----"

"Well, I'll soon fix that, Cuffy," said Mr. Griffin, opening his coat and taking out a card. "There, just pin that on the turkey when it is ready, and carry it over here to Dubbs's--David Dubbs is my clerk. He will understand the card, and bring the turkey out to my house. I shouldn't be so particular about it if Mrs. Griffin had not impressed it on me this morning. I almost forgot it, too."

Then asking the price, and answering,--

"That is very high, Cuffy;" to which that young man replied,--

"I know it is, sir, Mr. Griffin, but then, you see, the demand is werry great, sir."

Mr. Griffin paid the bill and hurried out, took a car at the next corner, and, after a long, cold ride, got home to allay the anxiety of Mrs. Griffin by assuring her that the turkey was ordered, and would be sent home promptly to-morrow by David Dubbs.