Part 6

So dinner was served; but though Miss Brown was really very nice, and said that everything was “delicious,” and she thought we should find the new régime a real improvement on the old, I could not feel much pleasure in her praise.

“Shall I tell you something?” asked Ernie, unexpectedly, as she set a dish of milk for Rosebud on the hearth, after the table was cleared and Miss Brown had gone upstairs. “Well, Uncle George is a devil. There!”

“Ernie,” said mother, turning in the doorway with Robin’s tray, which she was about to carry to the nursery, “I don’t wish you to speak that way. It is not right. Uncle George has been a good friend to us, according to his lights, and in this instance the fault is entirely with Hazard. He was foolish and careless, and we cannot expect an exception to be made in his case. It was against my wishes that he took a position,—now it lies with himself to make the best of it, and to try to overcome those faults of character which prevent his being the comfort and support to me that I have a right to expect.”

Poor Hazey, who was helping dry the dishes, blushed to the roots of his hair, and dropped a cup and smashed it.

Oh, dear! I do feel so sorry for _everybody_! That big splash is a tear;—and to-night there just _don’t_ seem to be any roses, so there!

Monday, December 22.

All last night the wind whistled and howled about the house. This morning we woke to a snowstorm of almost blizzard proportions. And, oh, but the atmosphere was arctic!

“You get up first,” says Ernie, poking her little pink nose above the bed-covers.

“Indeed, I’ll do nothing of the sort,” I answered. “It’s _your_ turn.”

“I thought you loved me, Elizabeth!” wailed Ernestine, reproachfully.

“So I do,” I answered, and hopped heroically forth to the glacial matting.

Ernie followed with hysterical giggles,—and I can tell you it did not take us long to dress!

Fortunately Miss Brown had gone to spend Sunday with a niece in Flatbush, so we did not have her to worry about. Mother made the nursery as comfortable as possible at the sacrifice of heavy inroads upon our precious stock of coal, and there Haze, Ernie, Robin, and I passed the morning. For Haze was taken ill Sunday night with a sharp attack of laryngitis, and was still unfit for the office; and we did not think it wise for Ernie to attempt to make her way to school through the snowdrifts. But, though it is not often now that we have the chance of a day together, it was not especially jolly.

Poor Hazey squatted on the register, very hoarse and gloomy, pegging away at his eternal Cæsar; I darned stockings, and understood just how it was that Rose had used to be cross on a stormy Monday; while Ernie, hid in a corner behind a series of screens that she had contrived, sang carols and asked ridiculous riddles, busy as she declared upon “a secret.”

As for Robin, he sat in his shabby little grey flannel dressing-gown, propped up with pillows in the middle of mother’s big bed, talking about Santa Claus and the things he wanted for Christmas.—

“I’ve been good for three weeks,” he boasted vaingloriously. “I’ve taken my cod-liver oil,—haven’t I, Elizabeth? And I’ve finished the First Reader, and learned to spell _squirrel_! Hope old Santa knows about it, ’cause I want a lot o’ things!”

“Why don’t you write a letter, and tell him what you want?” suggested Ernie.

Whereat, Hazard scowled at her over his Cæsar, and I shook my head warningly; but it was already too late. Robin caught gleefully at the suggestion.

“I will,” he piped. “Bring me some paper and a pencil, Elizabeth. Hurry up, now, honey!” For Bobsie dearly loves to write letters, and the fact that no one can read them but himself does not dampen his enthusiasm in the least.

“What is the difference,” sang out Ernie, blithely, while I searched mother’s desk for a half-sheet of note paper, “between a horse and an egg?”

“There’s no difference between you and a donkey,” growled Hazard.

“Well, I like that!” retorted Ernestine; while Robin, after a vigorous suck at the stump of pencil I had handed him, began unctuously upon his letter.

“_Dear Santa Claus_,” he muttered,—

“_I want the Mowgli books_,—”

“_Jungle Books_,” corrected Ernie.

“—_and a horse just like Georgie’s_,” continued Robin, with a flourish.

“Why not a little, white, cuddly, flannel rabbit with pink eyes?” suggested Ernestine. “You could take that to bed with you, you know, Robin, and the horse would have to sleep in a stall in the closet, which wouldn’t be nearly so convenient!”

“Yes, _a little white flannel rabbit with pink eyes_,” corrected Robin, obligingly. “_And a steamboat what can whistle, and a box of building blocks, an’_——”

But here Haze slammed to his book.

“Shut up, Bobs,” he commanded, roughly. “What’s the good? There isn’t any Santa Claus, and you might just as well know it now, as——” but there he stopped; for Robin was staring at him with such round frightened eyes that Ernie and I cried out together,—

“Oh, Hazard! how can you! You ought to be ashamed!”

Haze opened his book again. “I don’t care,” he muttered. “There isn’t any use in his running on like that. He isn’t going to get anything; we all know it, and——”

But Bobsie cried, “I will, too! I’ve taken my cod-liver oil, I tell you!”

And Ernie, running to his side, flung her arms protectingly about him. “Of course you have, honey,” she crooned, “and of course you’ll get some presents! Hazard is only teasing. The idea of there not being any Santa Claus! Who gave you your things last year, I’d like to know?”

Robin’s chin was beginning to quiver, and two great teardrops blinked on the ends of his long lashes. He held his arms tight about Ernie’s neck, and cuddled up against her side.

Haze looked at them a moment, threw his book aside, and strode from the room, I following.

“Hazard!” I began, as soon as the door had shut upon us. “It was cruel! How could you do such a thing?”

“Don’t bother!” answered Haze, gruffly. “I didn’t intend to say it that way, but—Robin _isn’t_ going to get anything. I couldn’t bear to have him go on like that, and know it was all my fault, and,—oh, let me alone, Elizabeth!”

And, shaking my hand from his arm, he turned and bolted upstairs, where I heard the workshop door slam to behind him.

Naturally, if the rest of the house is cold, you can imagine what it must be in the workshop. I was very much afraid that Hazard would add to his sore throat; but I knew it would do no good to speak to him just then, so I returned to the nursery, where Ernie was still sitting on the side of the bed, her arms close about Robin, whispering to him in the most seductive of tones.

“Yes, he looked just like the pictures, Bobsie,” she was saying. “It was in front of Macy’s that we met, and I think he must have been looking about at the toys. I was very much surprised, of course; but I went right up to him, and said,—‘How do you do, Mr. Santa Claus? I’m Robin Graham’s sister.’”

“Did you, Ernie!” cried Robin, with shining eyes. “And what did he say?”

“I can’t tell you that,” returned Ernie, mysteriously, “because it is a secret. But don’t you worry, honey; _everything is going to be all right_!”

Here I thought it time to interfere; for, though Hazard had been hasty and even unkind in the way he spoke, still we all knew that Robin was not going to get anything for Christmas,—so what was the use of comforting him with false hopes that could only lead to a still more bitter disappointment?

“Run down and set the table, Ernie,” I said, a little dryly. “It’s time for Robin to have his reading lesson, now.”

Bobsie looked at me half shyly under his dark lashes.

“I have a Secret,” he said, and gave Ernie a long kiss before he let her go.

After luncheon, while we were washing the dishes, I asked Ernestine what she meant by talking to Robin so. “There is no good in deceiving him,” I said. “Of course, Hazard did not set about it in the right way, but sooner or later he will have to be told. He isn’t going to get anything. You heard what mother said.”

Ernie looked at me in blank amazement. “Why, Elizabeth!” she cried.

“Ernestine,” I returned, “remember,—you are nearly thirteen years old! Do you believe in Santa Claus, too?”

Ernie laughed and flapped her dish towel. “Of course I do,” she answered, “after my own fashion. You and Hazard are too silly! Mother didn’t mean, I suppose, that she was going to take away all the presents that come to the house for Robin, and burn them? She only meant that we couldn’t spend any money. What’s to prevent Aunt Adelaide giving him something as she always does, I’d like to know? and Georgie? and Geof?” Here Ernie began to two-step to the cupboard with a pile of plates. “Oh, Elizabeth,” she chortled, “he says I can help him choose ’em! Robin will be simply _de_lighted! He has never had anything so stunning in all his life! But there,”—Ernie rattled the plates perilously down on the cupboard shelf. “It’s a secret. I promised I wouldn’t breathe a word! And I know another that Miss Brown told me, and _another_ with Mrs. Burroughs! Hazard is a grumpy goose. Why can’t he think of something to give Bobsie, the way I’m doing,—it needn’t cost, you know,—instead of being so huffy and remorseful about a Past that can’t be Helped?”

Now wasn’t that exactly like Ernie? Christmas is her birthday, and she seems to have the very spirit in her veins. If we were wrecked upon a desert island, I believe she would still find some appropriate way to celebrate.

“So _that_ is what you were busy about behind your screen?” I cried.

“Of course,” says Ernie. “What did you think? You must make something, too, Elizabeth, and I know mother will; and the letter was just a blind to get Robin to believe he wanted the things we can afford to give him. I thought you and Hazard would understand.—And even if we are poor, so long as we love one another and keep jolly, what’s the odds?”

“Ernie,” I answered, “you are a darling. _There aren’t any!_”

So then we sought an interview with Hazard to explain how matters stood.

“All right,” he answered, none too enthusiastic just at first. “I’ll try,—but it’s different with you girls. I can’t make anything, you see,—little fol-de-rols out of sawdust and gold paper. And everything I’ve saved must go for car fare and expenses these next few weeks. Honestly, I haven’t a cent to call my own, except my lucky penny of 1865, the year Lincoln was shot. And perhaps I’ve lost that.” He searched his pockets. “No,—here it is.”

“Hand it over,” says Ernie. “I know you’ll think the best luck you can possibly have just now is to buy a nice Christmas present for Robin. I’ll do your shopping this year, Hazey, and I’ll promise to get something Bobs will really like, too. Cheer up, children! No Santa Claus, indeed! I’m ashamed of you.”

Friday, December 26.

Christmas has come and gone, and in spite of our gloomy expectations we have had the jolliest time. You would hardly believe it! Oh,—there were plenty of roses!

The first nice thing that happened was on Tuesday morning when mother received a letter from Miss Brown, stating that she had been asked to stay over the holidays with her niece in Flatbush.

“Hurrah! hurrah!” carolled Ernie:

“Shout the glad tidings, exultantly sing, Jerusalem triumphs, Messiah is king!”

She did not mean anything the least irreligious. It was simply a spontaneous outburst of joy; and at the same instant a mad enthusiasm seemed to seize hold of us all.

“Let’s finish the breakfast dishes at once, Elizabeth,” said mother. “I have some sewing upstairs that I _must_ attend to.”

“And there is something I must finish, too,” answered I. “How considerate of Miss Brown’s niece! Just think, our Christmas dinner alone!”

“_Have_ you decided—_how_ you are going—to spend my _lucky penny_?” shouted Hazard from the hall above. “You understand, Ernie,—I want it to go—_as far as possible_!”

“Yes! yes!” answered Ernie. “I’ve a grand idea! Don’t you worry, Hazard. Geof and I are going shopping this afternoon after school.”

And so they did, and so did mother, and so did I! It was really amusing. Nobody could be prevailed upon to tell what had been bought, except that “it was very cheap, dear. Don’t worry!”

Then in the evening Ernie and I made old-fashioned molasses candy, because it is less expensive than fudge and we had determined to pull it and twist it into original shapes, something individual for each one. For Robin we made a little yellow bird (I must confess it looked more like a chicken than anything else), a boy with a big hat and a crooked nose, and a pig with a curly tail. Hazard’s candy we put peanuts in, and did not pull, because he prefers it that way. Mother’s we tied into a variety of charming bow-knots; and Ernie made me a mandolin, and Geof a hockey stick, while I made Ernie a Santa Claus. He was a little wobbly in the legs, to be sure, but any one could recognise him from his pack.

In the middle of it all Mrs. Burroughs came over, full of her own plans.

“I do hope you won’t say no, Mrs. Graham,” she pleaded. “I haven’t had any Christmas fun—for ages!”

It seems that she wished to give a party for Robin. “I will have it Wednesday night, Christmas eve,” she explained. “So it needn’t interfere with your family celebration in the least. May I, _please_?”

“Why, it would be lovely,” we all answered with enthusiasm. And Mrs. Burroughs flushed a beautiful rose colour, and for a moment the quick tears stood in her eyes.

“Thank you so much,” she answered. “Then that’s settled. You see Francis and I used to have such good times, and just the last year I got him a magic lantern. It is really a very nice one, and there are some charming slides. ‘_The Night before Christmas_’ is the set Francis liked best,—especially the pictures of the reindeer. I thought we might give it for Robin, and perhaps you will lend your back parlour for the occasion. We can begin early,—say half-past seven. I wonder if Hazard will consent to act as manager?”

“You’d better choose Geof,” warned Ernie. “He’s cleverer at that sort of thing, and I’m sure he’d like to come.”

So the matter was arranged. The following afternoon,—to the intense excitement of Robin,—Mrs. Burroughs, Geof, and Ernie shut themselves up in the back parlour, from whence began to issue the sound of much laughter and hammering.

Despite his impatience, it was not till quarter to seven o’clock that the doors were finally thrown open and Robin was carried down. How charming everything looked, to be sure! Long loops of ground-pine were festooned about the chandelier, and along the picture-rail. A great artificial Christmas bell hung in the doorway, from either side of which dropped gay streamers of baby-ribbon strung with sleigh-bells, that jingled and sang in the merriest fashion at the touch of a passing hand. In the window were holly wreaths, and back of the Madonna over the chimney-piece were two more great branches of holly with the biggest, brightest berries I have ever seen. A red Christmas candle burned upon the piano. The old lounge, covered with a tiger rug lent by Mrs. Burroughs, had been pushed out into the middle of the room, and a series of “orchestra chairs” arranged about it. Between the folding doors the magic sheet was hung, and behind it could be heard the voices of Geof and Ernie in animated discussion.

Presently the guests began to arrive,—Georgie and his nurse, Robin’s “chum” John, who had been looked up especially for the occasion, because, as Bobs persuasively explained, “it would be pretty odd for a boy to give a party and not ask his own chum”; old Mrs. Endicott, who is Mrs. Burroughs’ aunt, and Rosebud, very gay and debonair in a becoming red ribbon bow.

“The audience is ready,” sang out Robin, from his lair on the tiger skin. “What makes the party so late, I’d like to know?”

“It isn’t late at all,” returned Mrs. Burroughs, from behind the curtain. “The idea! we said half-past seven o’clock, and it is only quarter after. You are early! That’s all!”

However, in another moment Geof appeared to turn down the lights. With a deep, expectant sigh from Robin, Georgie, and John, the party had begun!

The pictures were certainly charming, and Geoffrey managed the slides without a hitch.

First came “_The Night before Christmas_”:—Santa Claus starting out on his journey with a sleigh overladen with toys. How life-like the reindeer looked, to be sure! and how impatient to be off!

“They can go, I bet you!” shouted Georgie, “once Santa takes up the lines.”

Next followed a scene among the roof-tops; a great round moon overhead, and Santa Claus already disappearing down the chimney.

“This can be your house, John,” says Robin, magnanimously. “Perhaps he’s going to leave that tin trumpet. I don’t want it.”

“Neither do I,” answered John. “I’d rather have a real automobile.”

But already the scene had shifted. Santa Claus, upon the hearthrug, was filling stockings with a roguish glance at three little heads buried among the pillows of a great four-poster bed.

How the children laughed and applauded! Next came the stories of _Cinderella, Puss in Boots_, and _Hop o’ My Thumb_, which were an almost equal success; and, finally, when the last slide was exhausted, the lights were turned up, and what Georgie called “the real party” was brought in. This consisted of ice cream, served in pretty coloured forms of fruits and flowers; lady-fingers; dishes of sugar-plums, and a mild brew of cocoa.

The favours were mechanical toys, such as are sold in quantities along Broadway and Twenty-third Street at this season of the year,—something amusing or interesting for each one. Georgie had a monkey that ran up a stick; Robin a small toy balloon in the shape of a pink rubber pig, that squealed shrilly when blown up; Geof a rooster that could flap its wings and crow; and Ernie a little old woman with a rake and a watering-pot, who, after being properly wound up, would start conscientiously forth to sprinkle her garden, only to trip at the first obstruction she met, and lie kicking her heels frantically on the carpet.

“Oh, it has been a _love-ly_ party,” sighed Robin, at last, his arms tight about Mrs. Burroughs’ neck, as he kissed her a sticky but affectionate good-bye. “Thank you _so_ much, and Merry Christmas, dear!”

“God bless you, darling boy,” returned Mrs. Burroughs. “Promise you won’t lie awake thinking about it, and to-morrow will come all the sooner.”

So, with season’s greetings, and many protestations of having passed a most delightful evening, the guests departed. Robin was hustled upstairs to bed by mother; while Ernie, Haze, and I proceeded to collect the various Christmas gifts that had arrived, preparatory to filling his stocking.

Really, there was so much! A delightful swan’s-down comforter for his cot from Aunt Adelaide; a set of building-blocks from Georgie; the _Jungle Books_ from Mrs. Burroughs; and a regiment of tin-soldiers, with artillery and mounted officers, that had come in the morning’s mail from Miss Brown. Next we brought out the home things;—a gay little dressing-gown that mother had made from her old cashmere shawl with cherry-colour collar and cuffs; a pair of crocheted slippers to match, this was my gift; a little white flannel rabbit, with pink beads for eyes and a fluff of a tail, from Ernie, and a really amazing menagerie, of some hundred and fifty animals, elephants, giraffes, lions, tigers, leopards, monkeys, and all. She had traced the pictures from old magazines, transferred the outline to heavy paper, cut the figures out and coloured them.

“They’re wonderful, Ernie!” I cried.

“But where’s my present?” asked Haze, looking worried.

“It’s coming,” says Ernie. And, running from the room, she returned a moment later with—what do you think? Nothing more nor less than a _clam_! a live clam, if you please, neatly housed in the little glass globe that Hazard used to keep gold-fish in some years ago.

“Holy smoke!” muttered Haze, not knowing whether to be most disappointed or amused. “Wh-what’s it for?”

“A pet, to be sure!” answered Ernie, nonchalantly. “I bought it of Murray, the fishman, and, though he said he did not usually sell clams by the piece, when he did they cost just one cent. So we’ll call it Abraham Lincoln in memory of your lucky penny. Bobsie will love it! It can snap at a straw if you try to tickle it, and hang on like a bulldog. You’ll see.”

“But how did you ever come to think of it, Ernie?” I asked.

“Clam-fritters,” answered Ernie, succinctly. “We had ’em the other morning for breakfast, and then, too, we’ve been studying bivalves in school this term, and they are really very interesting animals.”

So, the stocking was filled, with an orange, an apple, the molasses-candy figures,—chicken, pig, boy,—some sugar-plums left over from the party, my slippers, and the white flannel rabbit, whose pink silesia ears poked alluringly out at the top. Mother and I stole on tiptoe into the nursery to play the part of Santa Claus, by light of a shaded candle. We dropped the down quilt softly over Robin’s crib, and stood for a moment watching our baby, who, quite worn out with the evening’s excitement, slept feverishly, a bright flush upon his cheek, his little breast rising and falling in answer to his hurried breathing.

“I hope it has not been too much for him,” said mother, in a low voice.

“I hope not,” I answered.

But we might have spared ourselves anxiety. Robin slept quietly through the night, and till half-past seven Christmas morning, when he woke as fresh and blithe as a lark. And how delighted he was with all his things! He positively shouted with joy over the paper menagerie and tin soldiers; and insisted upon being put into his new dressing-gown on the spot, with many sarcastic side remarks about “boys what said there was no Santa Claus!”

But the present that pleased him most of all was—Abraham Lincoln!

“It is what I wanted more than _anything in the world_!” he remarked, with a fondly doting glance at his new pet. “Only I didn’t think of it in time to say so. Now when Rosebud runs away and leaves me, I need never be lonely again!”

Though the rest of us did not fare as royally as Robin, there was some trifle for each one;—Ernie had seen to that.

“I had just fifty cents to spend on the entire family,” she explained. “Don’t you think I managed well?”

There were also a number of pretty gifts from Mrs. Burroughs, the score of _Robin Hood_ from Meta for me, and a really portentous jackknife with three blades and a corkscrew attachment from Geof for Ernie.

“How jolly!” she cried, hopping about on her little pink toes. “I need never borrow Hazard’s again, and I can pull all Robin’s cod-liver oil corks! Hurr-oo!”

After breakfast came church. Haze volunteered to stay with Bobsie, so that mother, Ernie, and I might go. But just as we were leaving the house whom should we meet on the front stoop but Geoffrey, bearing his much-heralded present for Robin,—a really handsome nickel-plated cage in which crouched a pair of tiny white mice!

“The darlings!” chortled Ernie. “I can’t leave ’em! I can’t!”

So she deserted mother and me, and followed Geof to the nursery. And when we returned from service some two hours later, the three enthusiasts were still gloating.

“Look, Elizabeth!” exulted Ernie. “We’ve let ’em out of the cage, and they are quite tame!”

“I’m going to call them Open, O Buds, O Open, and Sweet Fern,” remarked Robin, in sentimental accents. “Nobody helped me think of those names. Aren’t they pretty?”

“See, Aunt Peggy,” says Geof. “There’s a wheel to the cage, so they can get plenty of exercise, and the man I bought ’em of told me we might expect a family about every three weeks.”

“Dear me!” murmured mother, in some dismay. “I wish he hadn’t been quite so lavish in his promises. But I must go down to attend to dinner now. Be careful of Rosebud, Robin. She would like your mice only too well, I fear.”