Part 7

Marjorie and Richard looked at each other. _Was it true?_ “Let _us_ see,” they urged. Richard did peek. He said he couldn’t see very clearly but that there was something there that he thought looked like money. It was round and there was something that looked like a bag there--maybe a money bag! Marjorie was so excited that she couldn’t keep still long enough to see anything at all well. But she thought she saw something that looked like a piece of paper. Nobody else had seen that, so they all peeped again. “It is a lost will,” declared Mark. And they believed him.

Then they fell to opening the flooring in a most reckless way. It really was dreadful--but when one is expecting to get at a money bag and a lost will, one does not stop to consider the flooring. The board was whacked beyond recognition. The hammer and chisel fell to work and the flooring yielded to the onslaught. Then--Mark lifted the board! Ah!--Ah-ha!--

Richard held the lantern down so that it shone full upon the treasure; Marjorie gasped; Mark bent forward to see all there was to see. There was a pile of broken glass and some rags, corks--and buttons! Oh, yes, and there was a piece or so of white paper--not very large. The buttons were of metal, round brass buttons, tarnished and old. The paper was old white paper, yellow now. It was not a lost will at all! No, the money bag was just a round wad of cloth and Mark’s noise was--Mark’s noise was evidently a rat running around the rat’s nest that they had found! Alas, alas! There was no more mystery! The three had never seen a rat’s nest before but Richard had heard about them. He said, from the first, he’d said it was a mouse--but everybody knows that a mouse is very different from a rat!

After they had all recovered from the shock of their disappointment, they laughed a little. It really was funny--There they had been planning what they would do with all the money after it had been properly divided! Of course, the lost will would have given the money to the finders, you know.

Mark fingered the buttons, grimy with much dust. “They don’t make buttons like this any more,” he said. “They are very interesting. I am glad I found them.” He said that they had not yet come to the end of the mystery. “_Why_ is there a circle on the attic floor?” he questioned. “Why?”

Nobody could say. Then they heard Mother’s voice downstairs. “You’ll have to tell about the floor,” Marjorie suggested. “We can never get it down again.”

So they did. It was a sorry group that said good-night, even after they had been forgiven.

Next day when Mark returned from school, he heard the carpenter repairing the damaged floor up in his den and he rushed up there.

“Say,” he said, “what do you suppose anybody ever made a circle on the floor like that for unless it was an astrologer?”

The carpenter laughed. “Sonny,” he smiled. “I’ve been in this house when there was a big cistern right here--Know what a cistern is? It’s what the family used to depend upon for water in the house. When they took it down, the floor that was painted all around it showed the circle where the cistern had stood. That’s all. It wasn’t any astrologer that made it.”

After that, somehow, the news about the cistern’s having been Mark’s mysterious circle in dim ages past, leaked out. Richard and Marjorie and Mabel and Eleanore plagued him forever after--but, anyway, Mark says, some day when he does find a fortune and a lost will, they’ll stop laughing at him. Maybe that’s true.

_Ermelinda’s Family_

_THE NOVEMBER SURPRISE_

_November’s first surprise pocket was another strange mystery. Dotty always chuckled when Marjorie asked her to tell what it was. “I can’t,” she laughed. “It’s a joke!” So poor Marjorie had to quiet her curiosity and wait till the very day before Thanksgiving. Then she ripped open the Surprise Book’s surprise and undid the paper that she found wrapped around that queer lumpy-bumpy-feeling thing. You couldn’t guess what Dotty had put in--it was a wish-bone. “Good wishes for a fine Thanksgiving dinner,” it send. As for the story, that was dated to read on the evening before Thanksgiving. It was called “Ermelinda’s Family,” and it was a Thanksgiving story._

_XIII_

_Ermelinda’s Family_

Ermelinda entered High School in September. Then, too, she contributed to the High School magazine. Going to and from school she hunted for themes to use in school compositions. She meant to write a story some day! That was Ermelinda’s ambition.

As she looked over magazines at home, she imagined how her name would look printed. Once when she was looking over a big fashion paper, she turned to a department page and found that there was a chance to correspond with an editor lady. So she at once wrote and between the two there grew up a friendly intercourse upon paper. Ermelinda confided her desire to write stories, and though none were awarded prizes in the department, yet Ermelinda regarded the editor lady as a friend. And once she told her how the school had solicited Liberty Bond subscriptions.

The boys and girls had volunteered for the work, going together from house to house. Ermelinda enjoyed the luck of selling nine bonds on subscription and one fifty dollar one outright. It was all very interesting indeed. Ermelinda grew more and more enthusiastic and her patriotism flamed hot. She went over the territory assigned and then, on her own hook, took up new territory. It was in rather a shabby quarter of the town but one of the girls was with her. So they entered a doorway and went into a tenement. She was surprised to see it so gray and destitute.

They knocked at the first landing, but though they met with a fair reception, they sold nothing. At the second landing it was the same. Ermelinda caught glimpses of bare poverty in the rooms as the door opened at her knock. She had always known that such things were, but the vivid picture of them had never been presented. So she mounted to the top floor and knocked. The door opened. It was a thin little ragged boy who opened the door and there were more thin little ragged boys inside--yes, and little girls and a baby and a mother and a father. All of them were so poor and so unhappy! Ermelinda explained her errand but, of course, it was hardly any use! Ermelinda wrote to her editor about it that evening. The editor answered, “Well, wouldn’t it be rather jolly to surprise that family with a basket of good things for Thanksgiving Day?”

Oh, indeed it would! She could get the girls at High School to help! She began to plan what to put into the basket. On the way to school the next day she told everybody she met. Ermelinda had a most engaging way of putting facts in story form. But though some contributed five or ten or twenty-five cents, there were others who drifted off as soon as money was mentioned. Then Stella Wilkins came by and Ermelinda grabbed her.

“Say, Stella,” she began, “don’t you want to help, too? I’m getting up a basket for Thanksgiving for a poor family I found in a tenement, they are--” but right here she stopped short. Stella’s expression was almost frightened. For the first time, Ermelinda noticed that Stella might be classed as “poor.” Ermelinda had never thought much about poverty before or noticed whether the boys and girls who came to classes showed signs of need. She had always liked Stella. “There are some children,” went on Ermelinda. “The little things look sick and hungry. We’re planning to give them a perfectly splendid Thanksgiving--I haven’t a cent to my name but I’m nabbing everybody I see--”

Stella smiled. “Guess you know, Erm, I really can’t, though I’d like to,” she said. “But father lost his work this fall and we’ve all had to do without things. I’m trying ever so hard to get my little sister a winter coat. She hasn’t any and she can’t go to school till she has one--It’s awfully hard, Erm. I’m glad you’re helping _them_!”

Ermelinda put an arm around Stella. “I’d like to work, too, to get that coat,” she said. “I’ve been lucky all my life and had things done for me but I’d be mighty proud if I could buy my little sister a coat if she needed one!”

They walked toward the class together. Somehow, they had become real friends.

She rushed home the next afternoon early in order to go buy the basket with one of the girls. Oh, Ermelinda’s family was to have the dandiest Thanksgiving that there ever had been!

She put a gay crêpe tissue paper table-set into the basket. It had a tablecloth and napkins with bright colored fruits upon it. Then all the other things were packed tight and the basket was very heavy and very tempting when Ermelinda’s busy fingers had finished. It was put away in the pantry closet to stand there safely till the time should come.

Next day Ermelinda found Kitty Fowler, who volunteered to help. “You see, Kitty, I can’t carry that big basket all alone myself,” she explained. “I do need somebody ever so much.”

“Then I’ll help and I’ll be at the corner waiting for you at four o’clock.”

When she reached the corner with tired arms, Kitty was not there. Ermelinda waited. It was frightfully windy and cold. It seemed as if it might snow for there was penetrating dampness and chill in the air. She thought of Stella trying to buy the coat for a little sister--she wondered if, by now, the little sister had it. She hoped so. She wondered how Stella had earned the money--Still Kitty did not come. It was growing dusk.

Ermelinda decided that Kitty must have forgotten. She was that kind--always ready to help but not responsible. It was too late to go home and get mother--beside that, mother was tired. The boys were out skating. There was no reason why she, Ermelinda, should not go alone. So she tugged the big basket and the bundle onward. Her arms ached and she had to stop more than once to turn ’round about, taking the basket in the other hand and changing the bundle. Somehow she reached the right street and the door that led to her family up there on the top floor. Somehow she reached the landing. She put the basket down and knocked. She had planned how nice it would be just to hand the basket in and say, “Santa Claus came for _Thanksgiving_ and brought you this.” Then she would run away and they would call, “Thank you! Thank you!”

Maybe they had not heard; Ermelinda knocked loudly again. No answer! She knocked again. All was silent! Then a woman in a blue apron came out upon the second floor landing and screamed up at her, “They’ve moved away. What d’you want anyhow? That family went off last week--Nobody’s there!”

At last, Ermelinda understood! But the woman did not know where they had gone. She suggested that Ermelinda ask the janitor on the first floor.

It crossed Ermelinda’s mind that she might give the basket to the woman on the second landing, but as she came down the wide-open door showed a table with food upon it. The janitor didn’t know where that family had gone--he said the man had work and they had gone away. Yes, they had been in hard straits for a while--didn’t pay rent at all, he said. But now there was nothing for Ermelinda to do about it. The bitter disappointment of the expedition made a lump in Ermelinda’s throat--why, if the fairy godmother had come to help Cinderella and had not found her, that is about how the fairy godmother would have felt!

Little Lady Bountiful almost cried but she took up the packages and walked home. She told mother all the story and then she wept. There were all those good things for somebody’s happy Thanksgiving and where should they go?

At last, mother suggested that she herself would buy the things in the basket and that Ermelinda might give the money to some public charity. She wrote her editor and asked what to do. The editor wrote back and said _she_ thought Ermelinda was right: that the boys and girls might be told, perhaps, but that since they had given the money without sacrifice, it ought to be used to help some need. Ermelinda received the letter from the postman just as she started for school. She opened it in the cloak-room and there she met Stella, who was just hanging her tam upon a neighboring hook.

They went into class. Suddenly in the midst of her conjugating of a Latin verb, a thought came to Ermelinda--Oh, how about the coat for Stella’s little sister? She would find out! At noon, she found Stella, eating lunch upon a bench. “Say, Stella,” she began, “we’re friends. Tell me, did you get it--that coat for your little sister?”

Then Stella told her. No! There was no coat. She couldn’t get that work. The little sister had colds and Stella was worried. As they talked, Stella told Ermelinda just how bitterly blue everything was. They parted as the bell rang for classes.

After school, Ermelinda labored over a letter that it was rather fun to write. She worked hard because of the fact that she was trying to disguise her handwriting. The letter was from Cinderella’s Fairy Godmother to Stella and inside the envelope, sealed with a blue bird seal, Ermelinda put the money! Then she sent the letter inside another to her editor in the city and asked her to mail it there. She told her Cinderella’s fairy had asked her to send this letter to somebody who mustn’t know where the Fairy Godmother lived. And the editor mailed the letter in the city. So the deed was done.

It was about three or four days afterwards that Stella came upon Ermelinda studying hard, her head in a book. “I want to tell you, you were so interested,” she beamed. “My little sister’s got the coat, only I didn’t really give it to her _myself_. The money came in a letter that was mailed in the city. It was ever such a dear letter and signed by Cinderella’s Fairy Godmother. I think it must have been from a real fairy, somehow, but I don’t know who could have known about the coat--I don’t know anybody else who might have sent it, unless it was a _real_ fairy!”

“I’m glad your little sister has the coat,” Ermelinda chuckled.

_The Directory Santa Claus_

_THE FIRST DECEMBER SURPRISE_

_When Dotty had made the Surprise Book upon that memorable day when she had not been able to go to school, she had calculated wrongly, so Marjorie’s Surprise Book had more than the usual number of leaves and it lasted till the following Christmas. The first surprise of that December which closed Marjorie’s Surprise Book seemed very thick and fat indeed. It proved to be two stories in place of one and with them was a Christmas card. “I’m sorry that the Surprise Book must end,” sighed Marjorie. “Aren’t you, Dot?” And of course, Dotty held out hopes that Santa Claus might bring another! I shouldn’t wonder if he did, for Santa Claus likes to make surprises. Maybe it was he, himself, who had told Mother how to make the first Surprise Book, long ago. They each chose one of the Surprise Book’s Christmas surprise stories for Mother to read aloud on Christmas afternoon when the stories were opened. Dotty’s came first. It was “The Directory Santa Claus.”_

_XIV_

_The Directory Santa Claus_

Christmas holidays had begun and school was out. The scholars had spoken Christmas pieces that told of gift-giving and Santa Claus.

Rose Schneider and Lili Fifer, with school-books under their arms, pushed open the heavy oak door of the big city library and trotted with one accord upstairs to join the line of children waiting to get in.

“I got a dandy book,” Lili volunteered as they wedged into the waiting line. “It was all about a little girl that went to see Santa Claus. I’m bringin’ it back now. Say, Rose, you get it on your card. It’s an awfully nice story.”

But Rose shook her head. The thin snub of her nose turned up even higher than ever. It added emphasis to her refusal. “There ain’t any Santa Claus,” she said. “I never had any Christmas presents from him.”

“Well,” Lili insisted, “I ain’t either but _I_ think there _is_ a Santa Claus all right. He don’t know us, maybe, but he’s awfully good to some children. My cousin that goes to Sunday School gets a doll, and a box of candy, and an orange from him every Christmas. He has a long white beard an’ he’s ever so jolly!”

“Salvation Armies, they make Santa Clauses. They’re not real--only anybody dressed up. Most likely your cousin’s Santa Claus was like that,” Rose retorted. “The Salvation Army Santa Clauses they always stand by the street corners to catch Christmas dinner pennies in their pails.”

“No. ’Twasn’t that kind of a Santa Claus! _He’s real!_”

“Well, you won’t find him in no _directory_,” Rose argued. “You just go an’ look. All real folks’ names is in it an’ you won’t find Santa Claus. There _ain’t_ any!”

With this parting thrust, Rose squeezed through a sudden opening in the line and escaped into the reading room beyond.

Lili waited for her book to be discharged, then she raised a questioning little hand toward the lady at the library desk.

“Please,” she asked, “where is the directory book?”

“Downstairs,” the librarian answered. And downstairs Lili went.

The directory book was really very, very big indeed. It was almost a pity that it couldn’t be a story book, for one could never have done with a story book _that_ size. There’d always be something new to read in it. When the fat volume was opened on its desk, Lili studied it at random trying to make out what it all meant. She decided to begin at the very beginning, so she commenced with _A_, turned on to _B_, and ran her forefinger down page after page. It took a great deal of time and patience. The text was very small and Lili was afraid she might overlook it. Down page after page it travelled till it came to _Claus_--Oh, there it was: Claus, Adolph, carpenter! No. That couldn’t be Santa Claus--the whole name wasn’t right. And beside that, _he_ wasn’t a carpenter, Lili felt sure.

How many people there were by the name of _Claus_! Well, with patience, one might find the right one! “Then I shall tell Rose that there is a Santa Claus for sure,” thought Lili. On down the list she went.

There was an S. T. Claus. That was the nearest to it. Who knows what that S. T. might mean in the way of abbreviation? The address was not far from the library. Lili decided to go down the avenue and find out if it were where the _real_ Santa Claus lived.

The long winter twilight was beginning when Lili came out of the library. Already the lights from the grocery and the drugstore on the corner beyond warmed the cold gray stone of the pavement with red light. Further over, past the intersecting street, an arc lamp made a misty star in the dimness. Toward the star of light Lili made her way.

Yes, yes, she was on the right side of the street--she was getting nearer, nearer! Lili’s heart went pit-a-pat. Oh, there it was--There it was! It was a little shop that bore the number. Over its window was a sign, S. T. Claus. Somewhere Lili thought she had seen Santa Claus’ name written that way! It was the _very_ place, no doubt!

In the shop-window was a wee green tinsel-covered tree. Toys were caught in the branches. They overflowed onto the broad base of the display-window--cats, dogs, carts, steam-engines, dolls, baby-carriages, jumping-jacks--Oh!

Lili stood staring, transfixed with wonder, for--for there in the store, visible through the lighted window, was a small, jolly-looking, white-bearded man--exactly like the picture of Santa Claus in the story book! To be sure, his white beard was not _quite_ so long, and he wore a gray knit coat instead of a bright red one with white fur on it. But his occupation of stringing Christmas tree chains was so very Santa-Claus-like, there could be no mistake in identity!

Just here, he came to the window and added a box of gay candles to the display of toys. He looked out at Lili through the frosty panes and smiled. “Hello,” he called by way of cheery greeting.

“Hello,” returned Lili, and, somehow, before she knew it, she was standing in the shop beside the worn counter, looking up into the merry face of Mr. Claus.

“It was through the directory that I found you,” she smiled. “Rose Schneider, she says there ain’t no _real_ Santa Claus--but I says there is for _sure_! A lot of children must have passed here an’ not known where Santa Claus lived maybe! But _I_ found you!”

Santa Claus doubled in a hearty chuckle. “And here I am all the time,” he laughed, “just every day.”

“Didn’t anybody know you was the real Santa Claus?” Lili gazed confidently into the old man’s bright eyes. “They had ought to know by the sign,” she suggested.

“How should they?” the little man replied. “Santa Claus--everybody knows he likes to be an ordinary citizen. You won’t tell the kids, will you?”

Lili hesitated. “No, not if you don’t want I should. But there is Rose Schneider an’ she says there ain’t any real Santa Claus. It was through her saying that I found you in the directory. She said there wasn’t no such name there”--

There was a silence.

“I’ve got it,” he announced suddenly. “Just why don’t Rose believe in Santa Claus--because he never brought her any presents or what?”

“I think it’s because you’ve forgot her mostly,” returned Lili. “I says to her you forgot me, too--but you didn’t know about us maybe.”

He thought.

“Where do you two kids live?” he questioned.

She told him.

“I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” said he. “I don’t want the other children to find it out that I _am_ the real Santa Claus, so you’d better not tell them. You run home now an’ you keep it quiet. Wait till real Santa Claus time at Christmas! THEN, Rose will believe!”

Ah, yes. And she _did_! It was a wonderful, wonderful Christmas for Lili and Rose. It was better even than Rose’s cousin’s Christmas, for they shared together a little tree that was left on Christmas Eve “From Santa Claus,” and each little girl had a doll, and some candy, and a game. “It’s from the _real_ Santa Claus an’ I know him but _you_ don’t, Rosie Schneider!” Lili beamed.

And Rose retorted, “I do too believe in the real Santa Claus!”

“I want a story about the _real_ Santa Claus and the little girl,” she demanded of the librarian at the children’s reading room next day. “Lili Fifer, she says it’s an awfully good story and she likes I should know more about him. It’s true for sure, ain’t it?”

And the librarian smiled.

_Mary Elizabeth’s Soldierly Christmas_

_THE SECOND DECEMBER SURPRISE_

_Marjorie’s Christmas story was called “Mary Elizabeth’s Soldierly Christmas.” She said she liked it better than the story Dotty chose from the Surprise Book’s Christmas pocket. You can tell what you think about it for yourself, for here it is._

_XV_

_Mary Elizabeth’s Soldierly Christmas_

Mary Elizabeth looked up from the soldier scarf she was learning to knit. Her mother, in the rocker beside Mary Elizabeth’s hassock, caught a bit of anxious thought that rested between Mary Elizabeth’s brown eyes. “What is it?” she asked, putting her hand down upon Mary Elizabeth’s to stop the knitting needles.

“I was thinking,” Mary Elizabeth sighed, “just thinking, Mother. It’s going to be a very soldierly Christmas this year, isn’t it? But the children--they don’t realize it and they’re thinking and talking about Santa Claus. Are we going to have the tree this year?”

Mary Elizabeth’s mother patted Mary Elizabeth’s hand softly. “We’ve always had one, haven’t we, daughter?” she said. “Can you remember the time when we did not have one?”

“No,” laughed Mary Elizabeth. “I suppose it was when I was too small a baby ever to have a tree or so little that I didn’t know what the lights were and thought I would like to play with their sparkles--but I do remember the tree we had when I was a little bit older. It was before any of the children came. I was about three years old, I think. You told me that the tree was made in honor of the little Christ Child’s birthday and I always thought you meant a little child like myself and expected to see him--”