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

know what to give Polly--piece o' the second jint an' the last-thing-over-the-fence. Nice 'n rich fer scraggly folks," he remarked. "How fer you, John?--little o' both, eh?" and he heaped the plate till our friend begged him to keep something for himself.

"Little too much is jes' right," he asserted.

When David had filled the plates and handed them along--Sairy was for bringing in and taking out; they did their own helping to vegetables and "passin'"--he hesitated a moment, and then got out of his chair and started in the direction of the kitchen door.

"What's the matter?" asked Mrs. Bixbee in surprise. "Where you goin'?"

"Woodshed!" said David.

"Woodshed!" she exclaimed, making as if to rise and follow.

"You set still," said David. "Somethin' I fergot."

"What on earth?" she exclaimed, with an air of annoyance and bewilderment. "What do you want in the woodshed? Can't you set down an' let Sairy git it fer ye?"

"No," he asserted with a grin. "Sairy might sqush it. It must be putty meller by this time." And out he went.

"Manners!" ejaculated Mrs. Bixbee. "You'll think (to John) we're reg'ler heathin'."

"I guess not," said John, smiling and much amused.

Presently Sairy appeared with four tumblers which she distributed, and was followed by David bearing a bottle. He seated himself and began a struggle to unwire the same with an ice-pick. Aunt Polly leaned forward with a look of perplexed curiosity.

"What you got there?" she asked.

"Vewve Clikot's universal an' suv'rin remedy," said David, reading the label and bringing the corners of his eye and mouth almost together in a wink to John, "fer toothache, earache, burns, scalds, warts, dispepsy, fallin' o' the hair, windgall, ringbone, spavin, disapp'inted affections, an' pips in hens," and out came the cork with a "_wop_," at which both the ladies, even Mrs. Cullom, jumped and cried out.

"David Harum," declared his sister with conviction, "I believe thet that's a bottle of champagne."

"If it ain't," said David, pouring into his tumbler, "I ben swindled out o' four shillin'," and he passed the bottle to John, who held it up inquiringly, looking at Mrs. Bixbee.

"No, thank ye," she said with a little toss of the head, "I'm a son o' temp'rence. I don't believe," she remarked to Mrs. Cullom, "thet that bottle ever cost _less_ 'n a dollar." At which remarks David apparently "swallered somethin' the wrong way," and for a moment or two was unable to proceed with his dinner. Aunt Polly looked at him suspiciously. It was her experience that, in her intercourse with her brother, he often laughed utterly without reason--so far as she could see.

"I've always heard it was dreadful expensive," remarked Mrs. Cullom.

"Let me give you some," said John, reaching toward her with the bottle. Mrs. Cullom looked first at Mrs. Bixbee and then at David.

"I don't know," she said. "I never tasted any."

"Take a little," said David, nodding approvingly.

"Just a swallow," said the widow, whose curiosity had got the better of scruples. She took a swallow of the wine.

"How do you like it," asked David.

"Well," she said as she wiped her eyes, into which the gas had driven the tears, "I guess I could get along if I couldn't have it regular."

"Don't taste good?" suggested David with a grin.

"Well," she replied, "I never did care any great for cider, and this tastes to me about as if I was drinkin' cider an' snuffin' horseredish at one and the same time."

"How's that, John?" said David, laughing.

"I suppose it's an acquired taste," said John, returning the laugh and taking a mouthful of the wine with infinite relish. "I don't think I ever enjoyed a glass of wine so much, or," turning to Aunt Polly, "ever enjoyed a dinner so much," which statement completely mollified her feelings, which had been the least bit in the world "set edgeways."

"Mebbe your app'tite's got somethin' to do with it," said David, shoveling a knife-load of good things into his mouth. "Polly, this young man's ben livin' on crackers an' salt herrin' fer a week."

"My land!" cried Mrs. Bixbee with an expression of horror. "Is that reelly so? 'T ain't now, reelly?"

"Not quite so bad as that," John answered, smiling; "but Mrs. Elright has been ill for a couple of days and--well, I have been foraging around Purse's store a little."

"Wa'al, of all the mean shames!" exclaimed Aunt Polly indignantly. "David Harum, you'd ought to be ridic'lous t' allow such a thing."

"Wa'al, I never!" said David, holding his knife and fork straight up in either fist as they rested on the table, and staring at his sister. "I believe if the meetin'-house roof was to blow off you'd lay it on to me somehow. I hain't ben runnin' the Eagle tavern fer quite a consid'able while. You got the wrong pig by the ear as usual. Jes' you pitch into him," pointing with his fork to John. "It's his funeral, if anybody's."

"Wa'al," said Aunt Polly, addressing John in a tone of injury, "I do think you might have let somebody know; I think you'd ortter 've known----"

"Yes, Mrs. Bixbee," he interrupted, "I did know how kind you are and would have been, and if matters had gone on so much longer I should have appealed to you, I should have indeed; but really," he added, smiling at her, "a dinner like this is worth fasting a week for."

"Wa'al," she said, mollified again, "you won't git no more herrin' 'nless you ask for 'em."

"That is just what your brother said this morning," replied John, looking at David with a laugh.


CHAPTER VII

The meal proceeded in silence for a few minutes. Mrs. Cullom had said but little, but John noticed that her diction was more conventional than in her talk with David and himself in the morning, and that her manner at the table was distinctly refined, although she ate with apparent appetite, not to say hunger. Presently she said, with an air of making conversation, "I suppose you've always lived in the city, Mr. Lenox?"

"It has always been my home," he replied, "but I have been away a good deal."

"I suppose folks in the city go to theaters a good deal," she remarked.

"They have a great many opportunities," said John, wondering what she was leading up to. But he was not to discover, for David broke in with a chuckle.

"Ask Polly, Mis' Cullom," he said. "She c'n tell ye all about the theater, Polly kin." Mrs. Cullom looked from David to Mrs. Bixbee, whose face was suffused.

"Tell her," said David, with a grin.

"I wish you'd shet up," she exclaimed. "I sha'n't do nothin' of the sort."

"Ne' mind," said David cheerfully. "_I'll_ tell ye, Mis' Cullom."

"Dave Harum!" expostulated Mrs. Bixbee, but he proceeded without heed of her protest.

"Polly an' I," he said, "went down to New York one spring some years ago. Her nerves was some wore out 'long of diff'rences with Sairy about clearin' up the woodshed, an' bread risin's, an' not bein' able to suit herself up to Purse's in the qual'ty of silk velvit she wanted fer a Sunday-go-to-meetin' gown, an' I thought a spell off 'd do her good. Wa'al, the day after we got there I says to her while we was havin' breakfust--it was picked-up el'phant on toast, near 's I c'n remember, wa'n't it, Polly?"

"That's as near the truth as most o' the rest on't so fur," said Polly with a sniff.

"Wa'al, I says to her," he proceeded, untouched by her scorn, "'How'd you like to go t' the theater? You hain't never ben,' I says, 'an' now you're down here you may jes' as well see somethin' while you got a chanst,' I says. Up to that _time_," he remarked, as it were in passing, "she'd ben somewhat pre_juced_ 'ginst theaters, an'----"

"Wa'al," Mrs. Bixbee broke in, "I guess what we see that night was cal'lated----"

"You hold on," he interposed. "I'm tellin' this story. You had a chanst to an' wouldn't. Anyway," he resumed, "she allowed she'd try it once, an' we agreed we'd go somewheres that night. But somethin' happened to put it out o' my mind, an' I didn't think on't agin till I got back to the hotel fer supper. So I went to the feller at the news-stand an' says, 'Got any show-tickits fer to-night?'

"'Theater?' he says.

"'I reckon so,' I says.

"'Wa'al,' he says, 'I hain't got nothin' now but two seats fer "Clyanthy."'

"'Is it a good show?' I says--'moral, an' so on? I'm goin' to take my sister, an' she's a little pertic'ler about some things,' I says. He kind o' grinned, the feller did. 'I've took my wife twice, an' she's putty pertic'ler herself,' he says, laughin'."

"She must 'a' ben," remarked Mrs. Bixbee with a sniff that spoke volumes of her opinion of "the feller's wife." David emitted a chuckle.

"Wa'al," he continued, "I took the tickits on the feller's recommend, an' the fact of his wife's bein' so pertic'ler, an' after supper we went. It was a mighty handsome place inside, gilded an' carved all over like the outside of a cirkis wagin, an' when we went in the orchestry was playin' an' the people was comin' in, an' after we'd set a few minutes I says to Polly, 'What do you think on't?' I says.

"'I don't see anythin' very unbecomin' so fur, an' the people looks respectable enough,' she says.

"'No jail birds in sight fur 's ye c'n see so fur, be they?' I says. He, he, he, he!"

"You needn't make me out more of a gump 'n I was," protested Mrs. Bixbee. "An' you was jest as----" David held up his finger at her.

"Don't you sp'ile the story by discountin' the sequil. Wa'al, putty soon the band struck up some kind of a dancin' tune, an' the curt'in went up, an' a girl come prancin' down to the footlights an' begun singin' an' dancin', an', scat my----! to all human appearances you c'd 'a' covered ev'ry dum thing she had on with a postage stamp." John stole a glance at Mrs. Cullom. She was staring at the speaker with wide-open eyes of horror and amazement.

"I guess I wouldn't go very _fur_ into pertic'lers," said Mrs. Bixbee in a warning tone.

David bent his head down over his plate and shook from head to foot, and it was nearly a minute before he was able to go on. "Wa'al," he said, "I heard Polly give a kind of a gasp an' a snort, 's if some one 'd throwed water 'n her face. But she didn't say nothin', an', I swan! I didn't dast to look at her fer a spell; an' putty soon in come a hull crowd more girls that had left their clo'es in their trunks or somewhere, singin', an' dancin', an' weavin' 'round on the stage, an' after a few minutes I turned an' looked at Polly. He, he, he, he!"

"David Harum," cried Mrs. Bixbee, "ef you're goin' to discribe any more o' them scand'lous goin's on I sh'll take my victuals into the kitchen. _I_ didn't see no more of 'em," she added to Mrs. Cullom and John, "after that fust trollop appeared."

"I don't believe she did," said David, "fer when I turned she set there with her eyes shut tighter 'n a drum,