Chapter 2

Then he glanced at Stump and said nothing at all. And quite suddenly conscience told Abner Sawyer that he could not accept without giving. Jimsy had helped him willingly and he had accepted--why he could not for the life of him remember, save that it had something to do with his throat and his poise. It did entail obligation of a sort, however, and he was a just man. Abner Sawyer did not look at Stump. He blew out the light.

In silence the two passed out and closed the door. The episodic irregularities of the evening beginning with the Lindon _Evening News_ had reached unheard of climax. A mongrel dog was asleep in the warmth of the sanctum.

Abner Sawyer had a strangling sense of another link to his biscuit-riven chain and passed his hand over his forehead in a dazed and weary way.

"Abner," said Aunt Judith nervously at breakfast, "you--you don't think this once we--could have--a--a Christmas tree for Jimsy?"

"Certainly not!" said Mr. Sawyer coldly.

Aunt Judith's hand trembled a little as she poured the coffee and the first citizen waited so long for her usual reply that he thought impatiently it would never come. It came at last--quietly.

"Just as you--say, Abner." But the final word was lost in an outraged yell from somewhere near the woodpile.

"It--it must be Jimsy," said Aunt Judith hurriedly. "He--he was up so early I gave him his breakfast. He's shoveling the snow from the walks--"

"Gwan!" came a muffled roar. "Say that again and I'll bust yer face good." Sounds of battle and vilifying repartee speedily upset the Sawyer breakfast. Abner Sawyer pushed back his chair and strode hastily to the kitchen window. He saw concentric circles of fists and snow and a yapping dog. He could not know that the defensive section of the maelstrom was Specks, the Christmas urchin next door, or that Jimsy and Specks settled every controversy under Heaven in a fashion of their own.

The first citizen flung up the window.

"James!" he said in a terrible voice.

The concentric circles wavered--then whirled dizzily on.

"James!" Too much conventional horror and dignity there to pierce the elemental.

"_Jimsy!_" There was sharp informality now that meant business. Jimsy upset his freckled antagonist in the snow and wheeled.

"Mister Sawyer," he yelled indignantly, "he went an' said ye was an ol' crab--an' a miser--an' a skinflint--an'--an' a stiff--an' I blacked his eye fur him an' tol' him he lied. An' he went an' said ye didn't have no heart or ye wouldn't let Aunt Judith carry in the wood an' do all the work an' never git no new clothes--"

"Yi! Yi! Yi! Yi!" derided Specks. "Boney Middleton tol' me--Boney Middleton tol' me. You won't have no tree or nuthin'."

"Didn't I tell ye 'bout the biscuit?" demanded Jimsy fiercely. "An' about Stump sleepin' in the work-shop, didn't I? Hain't that enuff? Hain't he good to boys an' dogs? I--I don't want no Christmas tree, ye big stiff. I'm goin' to have turkey--"

But Abner Sawyer had closed the window with a bang. Although he did not look at Aunt Judith he knew that her face was white.

IV

THE CHAIN CLANKS

It was the day before Christmas that the Village Conscience telephoned the Lindon Bank.

"I felt that I must call you up, Mr. Sawyer," she said firmly, "and tell you that the boy you have with you over Christmas is going around from door to door, ringing the bell and--_begging_!"

"Begging!"

"Perhaps I shouldn't call it _just_ that--but--well, saying 'Merry Christmas!' rather hopefully."

Feeling rather sick, Abner Sawyer formally thanked his informer and rang off. Glancing out of his office window he saw with a shock that instead of Austin White, who usually drove him home at night, Jimsy and Peggy, the old Sawyer mare, were waiting beneath a snow-ridged elm with the sleigh. Jimsy caught his eye, smiled warmly and waved, and because Abner Sawyer did not know what else to do, he stiffly returned the salute and reached for his hat, irritably conscious that sufficient sleep and food had already left their marks upon his guest. Jimsy's cheeks above the old-fashioned tippet Aunt Judith had wound about his throat were smooth and ruddy.

"Aunt Judith didn't want me to come," explained Jimsy, "but I tol' her how Gink Gunnigan often let me drive his truck an' I guess I coaxed so hard she had to.... Unc--Mister Sawyer, it--it's nearly Chris'mus eve!"

Abner Sawyer climbed in without a word. Peggy flew off with a jingle of bells through the village, through the woods, through a Christmas eve twilight dotted now with homely squares of light shining jewel-wise among the snowy trees.

"Jimsy!"

"Yes, sir?"

"A lady telephoned that you'd been--_begging_--from door to door."

Jimsy hung his head.

"I--I only rung some door-bells an' said 'Merry Chris'mus.'"

"You expected and received--money?"

"Y-e-e-e-e-es, sir."

"Why?"

Silence.

"Jimsy, I insist upon an explanation."

Jimsy gulped and faced Abner Sawyer, his eyes blazing with heartbroken disappointment through tear-wet lashes.

"Uncle Ab," he choked, "it--it was a Chris'mus s'prise fur you an' Aunt Judith." A great tear rolled slowly down upon the tippet. "I--I seen a book on fancy carpenterin' an' I--I didn't have no money an'--an' a thimble. It ain't silver, but it's 'mos' as good." And then Jimsy lost his moorings with a sob and cried his heart out upon the sleeve of Abner Sawyer. "I--I got the book buttoned under my coat," he blurted after a while, "an', Uncle Ab, I'm awful sorry 'bout the door-bells. All the fellus do it home--"

Abner Sawyer would have been less than human if the boy's tragedy had not touched him.

"Why," he asked huskily, "why did you wish to give me a Christmas present?"

"Because," cried Jimsy passionately, "yer so awful good to me an' Stump, an' so's Aunt Judith. An' I thought mebbe ye'd never had nobuddy ever give ye a present an' mean it like I did or--"

"Or what, Jimsy?"

"Ye'd feel diffrunt 'bout Christmas."

The first citizen took the reins himself, tucked Jimsy in beneath the fur robe and drove home in silence, conscious only that the world was awry and he hated the Village Conscience. Nor was he quite himself even after supper was done and Jimsy, a little tearful still in his disappointment, safe in bed.

"Abner--" began Aunt Judith from her chair by the fire.

"Yes?" said Mr. Sawyer coldly. He wished Judith would not talk. She rarely did. He was tired and upset and probing desperately within for some remnant of the cold complacence of a week ago.

"The minister was here to-day. He--he told me how Mrs. Dorgan took Jimsy in from the street. She--drinks. He--hasn't--a real--home. The minister would like--to--to find one for him."

Jimsy again! He must fling away his chain now or feel it clank.

"That," said Abner Sawyer resentfully, "is of no interest to me."

There was pitiful, hard-wrung bravery in Aunt Judith's face. Only a passionate surge of feeling could have swept away the silence and repression of the years. Only a woman's emotion, wild and maternal for all its starving, inevitable as the law of God, could have leaped a barrier so fixed and unrelenting.

"Abner," she said desperately. "I--I want to keep Jimsy. I--I can't _bear_ to see him go--"

"Judith!" There was more in the single word of course than Aunt Judith could know. There was an unread paper and a biscuit, a tailless dog invading sanctity, a yelling boy by a woodpile, and now the memory of a twilight ride and the tears of a choking lad upon his sleeve, an irritating record of moments of weakness which it behooved a first citizen to stamp out of his life forever. Aunt Judith read in his face an inexorable death-sentence of her hope and rose, trembling.

"You are a hard, cold man!" she said, very white. "And the house is so lonely I hate it!... I _hate_ it!" quivered Aunt Judith with a long shuddering sob; "there's no one to love in it--no one! And everything Specks said to Jimsy was true!"

And then, crying and shaking, she was gone, and Abner Sawyer went with stumbling feet to the privacy of his work-shop, his face death-white. The pompous illusions of his little world were tumbling to ruins about him.

He had said with frequent unction that he was a "hard" man, interpreting that phrase liberally in terms of thrift, economy and substantial common sense, and his world, through the mouth of an urchin, had flung back to him the galling words--_miser_ and _skinflint_! They had fawned to his face and flouted his back, gossiping of servants and made-over gowns and kindlings. Up and down the quiet work-shop walked Abner Sawyer, clinging in an agony of humiliation to the loyalty of a little urchin.... It was all he had, he told himself fiercely, all he had! Jimsy alone saw him as he was and liked him.... No heart!... No Christmas tree!... No one in the house to love.... He must prove then to Specks--to Jimsy--to Judith--to the Middletons--to all Lindon--

Turning with hot anger in his heart, he saw a book upon his work-bench; and picking it up, Abner Sawyer faced the pitiful fiasco of Jimsy's Christmas gift. With a great lump in his throat and his eyes wet he glanced at the fly-leaf.

"To Uncle Ab," it said, "from Jimsy. Chrismus gretings."

The door clicked as it had clicked the night before and the night before.

"Unc--Mister Sawyer," said Jimsy sleepily. "I 'mos' forgot to come, I was so awful tired an' sleepy.... Ain't--ain't sick, are ye, Uncle Ab? Yer face is awful queer."

"I--I don't know," said the first citizen hoarsely. "I--I think I am. Go to bed, Jimsy, and--thank--you--for the book."

Jimsy went back to bed. He did not know--nor did Aunt Judith or Abner Sawyer that presently he was the sole keeper of the house save Stump snoring in the kitchen. For Abner Sawyer was furtively driving Peggy into a village that knew him only by repute and Aunt Judith, having slipped away in white defiance to Cousin Lemuel's down the road, was driving into Lindon with the surreptitious savings of many years in the old-fashioned pocket of her gown.

V

THE PROVING

The clock struck six. It was Christmas morning! Jimsy awoke with the thought of turkey uppermost in his mind, to find Aunt Judith by his bed, a wonderful look of Christmas, he thought, in her gentle face.

"Dress quickly, Jimsy," she whispered, "and don't make a sound--not a sound! I'll wait outside by the door. It--it's a Christmas secret that nobody but you and I must know."

Jimsy tumbled into his clothes and opened the door.

"W-w-w-w-what is it, Aunt Judith?" he whispered.

But for answer Aunt Judith only hurried him in a flutter to the sewing-room, safe this many a year from the measured tread of first-citizen feet, and closed the door.

"Oh, Aunt Judith!" gulped the boy. "Aunt Judith!"

A Christmas tree winked and rainbowed glory in a window by the eaves, everything beneath its tinselled branches that the heart of boy could wish. The radiance in Jimsy's eyes brought Aunt Judith to her knees beside him, her sweet, tired eyes wet with tears of pleasure.

"You like it, Jimsy?" she whispered. "You're sure you like it, dear?"

Jimsy buried his face on Aunt Judith's shoulder with a strangled sob of excitement and delight.

"Aunt Judith," he blurted, "I--I can't 'mos' tell ye what I think."

Aunt Judith's arms clung tightly to him.

"Cousin Lemuel helped me," she whispered. "The house was dark and Mr. Sawyer in bed. There wasn't even a light in the work-shop. We tiptoed up and down the back-stairs. You mustn't breathe a word of it, Jimsy! Not a word! It's for you and me."

Jimsy sighed.

"Whisht," he said, "whisht Uncle Ab believed in Chris'mus."

Aunt Judith kissed him.

"Bless your heart, Jimsy," she said bravely. "So do I."

But even bewildering hours with gifts and trees must come to an end, and presently Aunt Judith and Jimsy went down hand in hand to attend to the fire and breakfast.... And the opening of the sitting-room door froze Aunt Judith Sawyer to the threshold, her face whitely unbelieving. Something was wrong with the primness of the sitting-room--something in evergreen and tinsel and a hundred candles that showered Christmas from its boughs--something was wrong with Abner Sawyer--up and waiting by the window, his face twisted into a faint and sickly smile of apology.

For now that he was in the very heart of his "proving" he did not know what on earth to do. Dignity?... It was hopelessly out of the question. With a monument to his midnight guilt blazing there in the corner--with Christmas wreaths hung in the windows to confound the Middletons--he must face the music. Feeling very foolish, he cleared his throat and essayed to speak, paralyzed into silence again by the unexpected evolution of a hoarse croak so horribly un-first-citizen that it frightened him.

Jimsy broke the staring silence.

"Uncle Ab," he quivered, "ye never--ye never went an' done all that fur me!"

"I--I don't know," said Abner Sawyer, swallowing very hard. "I--I think I did."

"When," faltered Aunt Judith from the doorway, "did you--do it?"

"It must have been after midnight. I came in very quietly. The ride was long--I went to Matsville. You must have been in bed asleep--"

Jimsy embarked upon a handspring of celebration.

"Two trees!" he shouted, caution quite forgotten in his wild excitement, "two suits of clothes--two everything! Oh, my gosh, Specks ain't in it. I'm the Christmas kid!" and then in a panic he was on his feet again, his face hot and red. "Aunt Judith," he exclaimed, almost crying, "I'm awfully sorry--"

Aunt Judith's tremulous laugh seemed tears and silver.

"Never mind, dear. It's all right now. Abner," she swallowed bravely, "one of--one of Jimsy's Christmas trees is in the sewing-room. I--I'd like you to see it."

VI

THE TRIUMPH

Specks reviewed the Christmas tree in the sitting-room after breakfast and looked upset. It was bigger than his own.

"Got one downstairs, too," crowed Jimsy. "Uncle Ab," he added, "he sort o' wanted it to be awful Christmasy through the whole house, an'--an' Jiminy Crickets, Specks, it is!"

"Uncle Ab--who's Uncle Ab?"

"Uncle Ab Sawyer." Jimsy bristled. "What ye got to say about it?"

"Nuthin'."

"Did _you_ get _two_ trees, Specks?"

"Naw. Hain't many folks did, I guess. 'Tain't nuthin' to crow about, anyway."

"Huh! Thought ye said the Middletons was more Christmasy'n us."

"I didn't."

"Ye did."

"I didn't."

"Ye did, too, and I walloped ye fur it. I'll wallop ye again if ye say ye didn't."

"Jimsy!" Aunt Judith's gentle voice put an end to controversy. An armistice was pledged.

"Did ye get skates, Specks?"

"Nope."

"Gosh, I'm sorry fur that. I got two pairs. Mebbe--Aunt Judith?"

"Yes, Jimsy?"

"Would ye mebbe mind me givin' Specks a pair o' skates? Mr. Middleton he ain't so Christmasy as you an' Uncle Ab--"

Specks swallowed hard and accepted this and the skates. But he could not forbear at least one shaft of triumph.

"I got a sled, Jimsy!"

"Huh!" said Jimsy. "So did I. Two of 'em."

It was too much. The street urchin in Specks came to the fore in a mighty wave of envy.

"Gawd!" he gulped.

Jimsy glowered.

"Hey!" he whispered fiercely "Hain't ye got no decency?"

Specks blushed apology and departed.

Later, Jimsy reviewed the Sawyer turkey with a reverential glisten in his eye.

"Specks!" he yelled from the kitchen window. "Yi, Specksy!"

"What d'ye want?"

"Come over an' see the turkey."

"Y'ain't got two, have ye?" demanded Specks with suspicion.

"Naw," said Jimsy. "One's enuff. This un's bigger'n the turkey Pete Googan raffled off last Christmas eve."

So Specks returned to envy--for the house of Sawyer had outdone the house of Middleton once more--and Jimsy in a glow of noisy delight led him to rows of pies and a barrel of ruddy apples--to celery and tarts--to fruit cake and cranberries and simmering vegetables--in short to every home-keeping kitchen device for filling a country house with the odor of Christmas and the promise of good cheer. The Sawyer kitchen to-day was a wonderful place of shine and spice. Even Aunt Judith felt the nameless something in the air, for her cheeks were faintly pink and the hand that smoothed her snowy apron trembled ever so little. Christmas had not come so this many a year.

But Specks departed this time with a furtive air of triumph.

"Mr. Middleton ain't no stiff," he announced. "_He's_ goin' out on the hill coastin' with me this afternoon--"

"S-s-s-s-h!" whispered Jimsy fiercely. "D'ye want Aunt Judith to hear ye? I git awful sick o' wallopin' you, Specks, but lemme hear ye say that again an' I'll baste ye good."

The kitchen door swung back. Specks paled, as well he might. The first citizen stood in the doorway, his mouth set.

"Jimsy," he said, clearing his throat. "Get your sled, my boy. We'd better try it out before dinner."

It was a challenge to the Middletons, of course, but afterwards, in a wild moment of panic, Abner Sawyer felt that he would have retracted at any cost had it not been for the wonderful glow in Jimsy's face. He felt a little sick.... God help him, he liked Jimsy! He wanted to please him!

VII

THE DOWNFALL

The Lindon hill was full of watchers. That in itself was disconcerting. Wild spirits gather in the snow on Christmas morning. And it was, of course, like Jimsy to fling himself suddenly upon his sled with a whoop and go flying down the hill through the snow fleet, yelling wildly, but Abner Sawyer wished he had made his debut a trifle less conspicuously. For it brought all eyes to Abner Sawyer himself standing stiffly upon the hill-top not quite sure of his ground. A neighbor or so eyed him in polite surprise and nodded; a child fastened round eyes upon his silk hat and he wished he had left it at home. But Christmas was no more Christmas than Sunday was Sunday without this formal head-piece, and besides, it had been his sole concession to the horrified stir of dignity within him when Jimsy had appeared upon the walk beside him dragging his sled. What on earth was he doing here anyway in the rough and tumble sport of a Christmas morning!

Yells of greeting followed Jimsy's meteoric flight down the hillside. Everybody seemed to know and like him, and Jimsy, as ever, was noisily responsive. Yes, he was more a part of this village of Lindon than the first citizen himself standing aloof upon the hill-top, and the first citizen had spent his life in Lindon. Abner Sawyer felt hurt and alone. He had slipped in an unwary moment from his wound-proof armor of conscious superiority and in this world of friends outside it, there was more room for Jimsy than there was for him. Small comfort, after all, the solitude of greatness!

The first citizen frowned impatiently. What was it all about, anyway, he wondered hopelessly. Did he want to be one of that yelling, shoving, jostling crowd? Surely not! His dignity rose in revolt at the very thought of it. Did he hunger for Jimsy's supreme gift of adaptability? Why should this fierce new hunger for one friendly, honest, heart-warming smile of liking and welcome gnaw at his heart?... Why--God help him!--why was he a stranger in his own town?

"The world is all wrong," said Abner Sawyer, a little white; "I am not myself." And for a wild moment his sore heart flamed again at Jimsy's revolutionizing intrusion into the quiet smugness of his life.

Jimsy's quick, eager little smile of greeting as he came up the hill again warmed the pang away--it was so full of good-fellowship and understanding.

"Ever go belly-whopper, Uncle Ab?" he demanded radiantly.

"I--I scarcely think so," said the first citizen.

"I--I don't like to belly-whop down the hill with you standin' up here alone," said Jimsy shyly. "Why don't ye go down just once with me, Uncle Ab? Then if ye like it, we'll just have one thump-walloper of a time!"

"No, no, Jimsy," said the first citizen. "I--I can't do that--" and then for the first time he met the amused eyes of Hiram Middleton and Specks.

So they had followed to the hill--incredulous and curious! A wave of anger swept Abner Sawyer into indiscretion.

"I--I'll go with you once, Jimsy," he said, and Jimsy's round little face glowed.

So the first citizen seated himself stiffly on the sled behind Jimsy, wondering what on earth to do with his legs. They seemed to have lengthened mysteriously and they looked astonishingly thin. Jimsy gave a wild Indian whoop of warning and the sled hurtled off down the hill, with the first citizen, unbelievably stiff-legged and frightened, clinging to his hat.

His emotions were panoramic. There was panic first at his lost dignity--then wonder at their speed, but most of all his legs bothered him--his legs and his hat. He wished Jimsy would quit yelling. Yet for all he tried he could not bring himself to say so.

"Ki-yi-yi-yi-whoop!" sang Jimsy, steering. Abner Sawyer gulped. Everybody on the hill, of course, was staring; his coat-tails were flying dizzily behind him. There would be a scandal and the directors of the Lindon Bank might even meet and call him to account. Small blame to them. Abner Sawyer mentally sketched a caricature of himself--coat-tails, legs and all--and Heaven help him!--lost his hat. He emitted a feeble croak of dismay. Jimsy looking back steered into a snow-bank and dumped the president of the Lindon Bank out upon the hill.

"Gosh Almighty, Uncle Ab," he yelled, "I'm awful sorry. I seen your lid go--"

"Never mind, Jimsy," said the first citizen, sitting up, "never mind--I--I really shouldn't have worn such a wind-catcher to--to belly-whop in--"

He sat very stiff amid the ruins of the snow-bank. Jimsy grinned.

"Ye ain't really done no belly-whoppin' yet," he said.

And now for the first time Abner Sawyer realized that everybody on the hill had come running at Jimsy's yell to see if he was hurt.... One was brushing him off ... another had rescued his hat with a horrible un-first-citizen dent in it and a lump of snow on the brim ... and they weren't shocked ... they weren't laughing.... Why on earth should there be friendliness now in their gaze when he had seemed so far away from them standing up there on the hill? No scandalized amazement here at the downfall of Lindon's pride ... he was somehow closer to them all.

It was Aunt Polly Magee, the self-appointed mother of the village, who finally stood the first citizen upon his feet and brushed the snow from his back.

"Dear me," she said, "that was a spill. When ye went down ye seemed 'mos' as leggy as a spider. Next time ye go coastin', Ab, ye'd better not wear your Sunday hat. 'Tain't no better'n a kite when it comes to wind."

Abner Sawyer's smile was vague and apologetic, but there was a fierce, wild joy in his heart that he didn't try to understand. He was glad he had lost his hat--he was glad he had fallen into the snow-bank--and he was glad Aunt Polly Magee had called him Ab for the first time in thirty years!

VIII

THE CHAIN IS LOCKED

Like a rainbow blur fled the Sawyer Christmas, punctuated with the yells and bangs of boyhood. From dawn to bed it was a triumph.

"Jimsy," said the first citizen at dusk, "has it--has it been what you'd call a--a walloper-thump--"

"Thump-walloper," corrected Jimsy.

"Thump-walloper of a day?"

Jimsy's reply was ecstatic.

"I 'mos' always forget," he added ruefully. "Aunt Judith said I mustn't call ye Uncle Ab. Which d'ye like best, Uncle Ab? Mister Sawyer or Uncle Ab?"

"I--I think," said the first citizen with a gulp, "that I like Uncle Ab a little better."

"So do I," said Jimsy.