The Christmas Story from David Harum by Edward Noyes Westcott (i am malala young readers edition TXT) 📕

to keep it. In the central part of the town some tentative efforts had been made to open walks, but these were apparent only as slight and tortuous depressions in the depths of snow. In the outskirts the unfortunate pedestrian had to wade to the knees.

As John went behind the counter his eye was at once caught by a small parcel lying on his desk, of white note paper, tied with a cotton string, which he found to be addressed, "Mr. John Lenox, Esq., Present," and as he took it up it seemed heavy for its size.

Opening it, he found a tiny stocking, knit of white wool, to which was pinned a piece of paper with the legend, "A Merry Christmas from Aunt Polly." Out of the stocking fell a packet fastened with a rubber strap. Inside were five ten-dollar gold pieces and a slip of paper on which was written, "A Merry Christmas from Your Friend David Harum." For a moment John's face burned, and there was a curious smarting of the eyelids as he held the little stocking and its contents in his hand. Surely the hand that had written "Your Friend" on that scrap of paper could not be the hand of an oppressor of widows and orphans. "This," said John to himself, "is what he meant when he 'supposed it wouldn't take me long to find out what was in my stocking.'"

* * * * *

The door opened and a blast and whirl of wind and snow rushed in, ushering the tall, bent form of the Widow Cullom. The drive of the wind was so strong that John vaulted over the low cash counter to push the door shut again. The poor woman was white with snow from the front of her old worsted hood to the bottom of her ragged skirt.

"You are Mrs. Cullom?" said John. "Wait a moment till I brush off the snow, and then come to the fire in the back room. Mr. Harum will be in directly, I expect."

"Be I much late?" she asked. "I made 's much haste 's I could. It don't appear to me 's if I ever see a blusteriner day, 'n I ain't as strong as I used to be. Seemed as if I never would git here."

"Oh, no," said John, as he established her before the glowing grate of the Franklin stove in the back parlor, "not at all. Mr. Harum has not come in himself yet. Shall you mind if I excuse myself a moment while you make yourself as comfortable as possible?" She did not apparently hear him. She was trembling from head to foot with cold and fatigue and nervous excitement. Her dress was soaked to the knees, and as she sat down and put up her feet to the fire John saw a bit of a thin cotton stocking and her deplorable shoes, almost in a state of pulp. A snow-obliterated path led from the back door of the office to David's house, and John snatched his hat and started for it on a run. As he stamped off some of the snow on the veranda the door was opened for him by Mrs. Bixbee. "Lord sakes!" she exclaimed. "What on earth be you cavortin' 'round for such a mornin' 's this without no overcoat, an' on a dead run? What's the matter?"

"Nothing serious," he answered, "but I'm in a great hurry. Old Mrs. Cullom has walked up from her house to the office, and she is wet through and almost perished. I thought you'd send her some dry shoes and stockings, and an old shawl or blanket to keep her wet skirt off her knees, and a drop of whisky or something. She's all of a tremble, and I'm afraid she will have a chill."

"Certain! certain!" said the kind creature, and she bustled out of the room, returning in a minute or two with an armful of comforts. "There's a pair of bedroom slips lined with lamb's wool, an' a pair of woolen stockin's, an' a blanket shawl. This here petticut, 't ain't what ye'd call bran' new, but it's warm and comf'table, an' I don't believe she's got much of anythin' on 'ceptin' her dress, an' I'll git ye the whisky, but"--here she looked deprecatingly at John--"it ain't gen'ally known 't we keep the stuff in the house. I don't know as it's right, but though David don't hardly ever touch it he will have it in the house."

"Oh," said John, laughing, "you may trust my discretion, and we'll swear Mrs. Cullom to secrecy."

"Wa'al, all right," said Mrs. Bixbee, joining in the laugh as she brought the bottle; "jest a minute till I make a passel of the things to keep the snow out. There, now, I guess you're fixed, an' you kin hurry back 'fore she ketches a chill."

"Thanks very much," said John as he started away. "I have something to say to you besides 'Merry Christmas,' but I must wait till another time."

When John got back to the office David had just preceded him.

"Wa'al, wa'al," he was saying, "but you be in a putty consid'able state. Hullo, John! what you got there? Wa'al, you air the stuff! Slips, blanket-shawl, petticut, stockin's--wa'al, you an' Polly ben puttin' your heads together, I guess. What's that? Whisky! Wa'al, scat my----! I didn't s'pose wild hosses would have drawed it out o' Polly to let on the' was any in the house, much less to fetch it out. Jes' the thing! Oh, yes ye are, Mis' Cullom--jest a mouthful with water," taking the glass from John, "jest a spoonful to git your blood a-goin', an' then Mr. Lenox an' me 'll go into the front room while you make yourself comf'table."

"Consarn it all!" exclaimed Mr. Harum as they stood leaning against the teller's counter, facing the street, "I didn't cal'late to have Mis' Cullom hoof it up here the way she done. When I see what kind of a day it was I went out to the barn to have the cutter hitched an' send for her, an' I found ev'rythin' topsy-turvy. That dum'd uneasy sorril colt had got cast in the stall, an' I ben fussin' with him ever since. I clean forgot all 'bout Mis' Cullom till jes' now."

"Is the colt much injured?" John asked.

"Wa'al, he won't trot a twenty gait in some time, I reckon," replied David. "He's wrenched his shoulder some, an' mebbe strained his inside. Don't seem to take no int'rist in his feed, an' that's a bad sign. Consarn a hoss, anyhow! If they're wuth anythin' they're more bother 'n a teethin' baby. Alwus some dum thing ailin' 'em, an' I took consid'able stock in that colt too," he added regretfully, "an' I could 'a' got putty near what I was askin' fer him last week, an' putty near what he was wuth, an' I've noticed that most gen'ally alwus when I let a good offer go like that, some cussed thing happens to the hoss. It ain't a bad idee, in the hoss bus'nis anyway, to be willin' to let the other feller make a dollar once 'n a while."

After that aphorism they waited in silence for a few minutes, and then David called out over his shoulder, "How be you gettin' along, Mis' Cullom?"

"I guess I'm fixed," she answered, and David walked slowly back into the parlor, leaving John in the front office. He was annoyed to realize that in the bustle over Mrs. Cullom and what followed, he had forgotten to acknowledge the Christmas gift; but, hoping that Mr. Harum had been equally oblivious, promised himself to repair the omission later on. He would have preferred to go out and leave the two to settle their affair without witness or hearer, but his employer, who, as he had found, usually had a reason for his actions, had explicitly requested him to remain, and he had no choice. He perched himself upon one of the office stools and composed himself to await the conclusion of the affair.


CHAPTER III

Mrs. Cullom was sitting at one corner of the fire, and David drew a chair opposite to her.

"Feelin' all right now? whisky hain't made ye liable to no disorderly conduct, has it?" he asked with a laugh.

"Yes, thank you," was the reply, "the warm things are real comfortin', 'n' I guess I hain't had licker enough to make me want to throw things. You got a kind streak in ye, Dave Harum, if you did send me this here note--but I s'pose ye know your own bus'nis," she added with a sigh of resignation. "I ben fearin' fer a good while 't I couldn't hold on t' that prop'ty, an' I don't know but what you might's well git it as 'Zeke Swinney, though I ben hopin' 'gainst hope that Charley 'd be able to do morn 'n he has."

"Let's see the note," said David curtly. "H'm, humph, 'regret to say that I have been instructed by Mr. Harum'--wa'al, h'm'm, cal'lated to clear his own skirts anyway--h'm'm--'must be closed up without further delay' (John's eye caught the little white stocking which still lay on his desk)--'wa'al, yes, that's about what I told Mr. Lenox to say fur's the bus'nis part's concerned--I might 'a' done my own regrettin' if I'd wrote the note myself." (John said something to himself.) "'T ain't the pleasantest thing in the world fer ye, I allow, but then you see, bus'nis is bus'nis."

John heard David clear his throat, and there was a hiss in the open fire. Mrs. Cullom was silent, and David resumed:

"You see, Mis' Cullom, it's like this. I ben thinkin' of this matter fer a good while. That place ain't ben no real good to ye sence the first year you signed that morgidge. You hain't scurcely more'n made ends meet, let alone the int'rist, an' it's ben simply a question o' time, an' who'd git the prop'ty in the long run fer some years. I reckoned, same as you did, that Charley 'd mebbe come to the front--but he hain't done it, an' 't ain't likely he ever will. Charley's a likely 'nough boy some ways, but he hain't got much 'git there' in his make-up, not more'n enough fer one anyhow, I reckon. That's about the size on't, ain't it?"

Mrs. Cullom murmured a feeble admission that she was "'fraid it was."

"Wa'al," resumed Mr. Harum, "I see how things was goin', an' I see that unless I played euchre, 'Zeke Swinney 'd git that prop'ty, an' whether I wanted it myself or not, I didn't cal'late he sh'd git it anyway. He put a spoke in my wheel once, an' I hain't forgot it. But that hain't neither here nor there. Wa'al," after a short pause, "you know I helped ye pull the thing along on the chance, as ye may say, that you an' your son 'd somehow make a go on't."

"You ben very kind, so fur," said the widow faintly.

"Don't ye say that, don't ye say that," protested David. "'T wa'n't no kindness. It was jes' bus'nis. I wa'n't takin' no chances, an' I s'pose I might let the thing run a spell longer if I c'd see any use in't. But the' ain't, an' so I ast ye to come up this mornin' so 't we c'd settle the thing up without no fuss, nor trouble, nor lawyer's fees, nor nothin'.