by A. A. Milne
* * *
Doyle said he was sorry; they were just having a little—a sort of a Christmas-eve party, you know. He blushed while he explained, and wondered whether Satherwaite thought them a lot of idiots, or simply a parcel of sentimental kids. Probably, Satherwaite knew some of the fellows? he went on.
* * *
Satherwaite studied the assemblage, and replied that he thought not, though he remembered having seen several of them at lectures and things. Doyle made no move toward introducing his friends to Satherwaite, and, to relieve the momentary silence that followed, observed that he supposed it was getting colder. Satherwaite replied, absently, that he hadn't noticed, but that it was still snowing. The youth in the cricket-blazer fidgeted in his chair. Satherwaite was thinking.
* * *
Of course, he was not wanted there; he realized that. Yet, he was of half a mind to stay. The thought of his empty room dismayed him. The cheer and comfort before him appealed to him forcibly. And, more than all, he was possessed of a desire to vindicate himself to this circle of narrow-minded critics. Great Scott! just because he had some money and went with some other fellows who also had money, he was to be promptly labeled "cad," and treated with polite tolerance only. By Jove, he would stay, if only to punish them for their narrowness!
* * *
"You're sure I sha'n't be intruding, Doyle?" he asked.
* * *
Doyle gasped in amazement. Satherwaite removed his coat. A shiver of consternation passed through the room. Then the host found his tongue.
* * *
"Glad to have you. Nothing much doing. Few friends. Quiet evening. Let me take your coat."
* * *
Introductions followed. The man in the cricket-blazer turned out to be Doak, '03, the man who had won the Jonas Greeve scholarship; a small youth with eagle-like countenance was Somers, he who had debated so brilliantly against Princeton; a much-bewhiskered man was Ailworth, of the Law School; Kranch and Smith, both members of Satherwaite's class, completed the party. Satherwaite shook hands with those within reach, and looked for a chair. Instantly, every one was on his feet; there was a confused chorus of, "Take this, won't you?" Satherwaite accepted a straight-backed chair with part of its cane seat missing, after a decent amount of protest; then a heavy, discouraging silence fell. Satherwaite looked around the circle. Every one save Ailworth and Doyle was staring blankly at the fire. Ailworth dropped his eyes, gravely; Doyle broke out explosively with: "Do you smoke, Satherwaite?"
* * *
"Yes, but I'm afraid—" he searched his pockets, perfunctorily—"I haven't my pipe with me." His cigarette-case met his searching fingers, but somehow cigarettes did not seem appropriate.
* * *
"I'm sorry," said Doyle, "but I'm afraid I haven't an extra one. Any of you fellows got a pipe that's not working?"
* * *
Murmured regrets followed. Doak, who sat next to Satherwaite, put a hand in his coat pocket, and viewed the intruder doubtingly, from around the corners of his glasses.
* * *
"It doesn't matter a bit," remarked Satherwaite, heartily.
* * *
"I've got a sort of a pipe here," said Doak, "if you're not over particular what you smoke."
* * *
Satherwaite received the pipe gravely. It was a blackened briar, whose bowl was burned half-way down on one side, from being lighted over the gas, and whose mouthpiece, gnawed away in long usage, had been re-shaped with a knife. Satherwaite examined it with interest, rubbing the bowl gently on his knee. He knew, without seeing, that Doak was eying him with mingled defiance and apology, and wondering in what manner a man who was used to meerschaums and gold-mounted briars would take the proffer of his worn-out favorite; and he knew, too, that all the others were watching. He placed the stem between his lips, and drew on it once or twice, with satisfaction.
* * *
"It seems a jolly old pipe," he said; "I fancy you must be rather fond of it. Has any one got any 'baccy?"
* * *
Five pouches were tendered instantly.
* * *
Satherwaite filled his pipe, carefully. He had won the first trick, he told himself, and the thought was pleasurable. The conversation had started up again, but it was yet perfunctory, and Satherwaite realized that he was still an outsider. Doyle gave him the opportunity he wanted.
* * *
"Isn't it something new for you to stay here through recess?" he asked.
* * *
Then Satherwaite told about Phil's Aunt Louise and the telegram; about his dismal dinner at the restaurant and the subsequent flight from the tomb- like silence of the club; how he had decided, in desperation, to clean up his study, and how he had come across Doyle's note-book. He told it rather well; he had a reputation for that sort of thing, and to-night he did his best. He pictured himself to his audience on the verge of suicide from melancholia, and assured them that this fate had been averted only through his dislike of being found lifeless amid such untidy surroundings. He decked the narrative with touches of drollery, and was rewarded with the grins that overspread the faces of his hearers. Ailworth nodded appreciatingly, now and then, and Doak even slapped his knee once and giggled aloud. Satherwaite left out all mention of Phil's sister, naturally, and ended with:
* * *
"And so, when I saw you fellows having such a Christian, comfortable sort of a time, I simply couldn't break away again. I knew I was risking getting myself heartily disliked, and, really, I wouldn't blame you if you arose en masse and kicked me out. But I am desperate. Give me some tobacco from time to time, and just let me sit here and listen to you; it will be a kindly act to a homeless orphan."
* * *
"Shut up!" said Doyle, heartily; "we're glad to have you, of course." The others concurred. "We—we're going to light up the tree after a bit. We do it every year, you know. It's kind of—of Christmassy when you don't get home for the holidays, you see. We give one another little presents and—and have rather a bit of fun out of it. Only—" he hesitated, doubtfully—"only, I'm afraid it may bore you awfully."
* * *
"Bore me!" cried Satherwaite; "why, man alive, I should think it would be the jolliest sort of a thing. It's just like being boys again." He turned and observed the tiny tree with interest. "And do you mean that you all give one another presents, and keep it secret, and—and all that?"
* * *
"Yes; just little things, you know," answered Doak, deprecatingly.
* * *
"It's the nearest thing to a real Christmas that I've known for seven years," said Ailworth, gravely. Satherwaite observed him, wonderingly.
* * *
"By Jove!" he murmured; "seven years! Do you know, I'm glad now I am going home, instead of to Sterner's for Christmas. A fellow ought to be with his own folks, don't you think?"
* * *
Everybody said, yes, heartily, and there was a moment of silence in the room. Presently, Kranch, whose home was in Michigan, began speaking reminiscently of the Christmases he had spent when a lad in the pine woods. He made the others feel the cold and the magnitude of the pictures he drew, and, for a space, Satherwaite was transported to a little lumber town in a clearing, and stood by excitedly, while a small boy in jeans drew woolen mittens—wonderful ones of red and gray—from out a Christmas stocking. And Somers told of a Christmas he had once spent in a Quebec village; and Ailworth followed him with an account of Christmas morning in a Maine-coast fishing town.
* * *
Satherwaite was silent. He had no Christmases of his own to tell about; they would have been sorry, indeed, after the others; Christmases in a big Philadelphia house, rather staid and stupid days, as he remembered them now, days lacking in any delightful element of uncertainty, but filled with wonderful presents so numerous that the novelty had worn away from them ere bedtime. He felt that, somehow, he had been cheated out of a pleasure which should have been his.
* * *
* * *
"Good old Christmas!"
* * *
The spell was broken. Satherwaite sighed—why, he hardly knew—and turned away from the window. The tree was brilliantly lighted now, and the strings of cranberries caught the beams ruddily. Doak stirred the fire, and Doyle, turning from a whispered consultation with some of the others, approached Satherwaite.
* * *
"Would you mind playing Santa Claus—give out the presents, you know; we always do it that way."
* * *
Satherwaite would be delighted; and, better to impersonate that famous old gentleman, he turned up the collar of his jacket, and put each hand up the opposite sleeve, looking as benignant as possible the while.
* * *
"That's fine!" cried Smith; "but hold on, you need a cap."
* * *
He seized one from the window-seat, a worn thing of yellowish-brown otter, and drew it down over Satherwaite's ears. The crowd applauded, merrily.
* * *
"Dear little boys and girls," began Satherwaite, in a quavering voice.
* * *
"No girls!" cried Doak.
* * *
"I want the cranberries!" cried Smith; "I love cranberries."
* * *
"I get the pop-corn, then!" That was the sedate Ailworth.
* * *
"You'll be beastly sick," said Doak, grinning jovially through his glasses.
* * *
Satherwaite untied the first package from its twig. It bore the inscription, "For Little Willie Kranch." Every one gathered around while the recipient undid the wrappings, and laid bare a pen-wiper adorned with a tiny crimson football. Doak explained to Satherwaite that Kranch had played football just once, on a scrub team, and had heroically carried the ball down a long field, and placed it triumphantly under his own goal posts. This accounted for the laughter that ensued.
* * *
"Sammy Doak" received a note-book marked, "Mathematics 3a." The point of this allusion was lost to Satherwaite, for Doak was too busy laughing to explain it. And so it went, and the room was in a constant roar of mirth. Doyle was conferring excitedly with Ailworth across the room. By-and-bye, he stole forward, and, detaching one of the packages from the tree, erased and wrote on it with great secrecy. Then he tied it back again, and retired to the hearth, grinning expectantly, until his own name was called, and he was shoved forward to receive a rubber pen-holder.
* * *
Presently, Satherwaite, working around the Christmas tree, detached a package, and frowned over the address.
* * *
"Fellows, this looks like—like Satherwaite, but—" he viewed the assemblage in embarrassment—"but I fancy it's a mistake."
* * *
"Not a bit," cried Doyle; "that's just my writing."
* * *
"Open it!" cried the others, thronging up to him.
* * *
Satherwaite obeyed, wondering. Within the wrappers was a pocket memorandum book, a simple thing of cheap red leather. Some one laughed, uncertainly. Satherwaite, very red, ran his finger over the edges of the leaves, examined it long, as though he had never seen anything like it before, and placed it in his waistcoat pocket.
* * *
"I—I—" he began.
* * *
"Chop it off!" cried some one, joyously.
* * *
"I'm awfully much obliged to—to whoever——"
* * *
"It's from the gang," said Doyle.
* * *
"With a Merry Christmas," said Ailworth.
* * *
"Thank you—gang," said Satherwaite.
* * *
The distribution went on, but presently, when all the rest were crowding about Somers, Satherwaite whipped a package from his pocket and, writing on it hurriedly, was apparently in the act of taking it from the tree, when the others turned again.
* * *
"'Little Harry Doyle,'" he read, gravely.
* * *
Doyle viewed the package in amazement. He had dressed the tree himself.
* * *
"Open it up, old man!"
* * *
When he saw the gun-metal paper-knife, he glanced quickly at Satherwaite. He was very red in the face. Satherwaite smiled back, imperturbably . The knife went from hand to hand, awakening enthusiastic admiration.
* * *
"But, I say, old man, who gave—?" began Smith.
* * *
"I'm awfully much obliged, Satherwaite," said Doyle, "but, really, I couldn't think of taking——"
* * *
"Chop it off!" echoed Satherwaite. "Look here, Doyle, it isn't the sort of thing I'd give you from choice; it's a useless sort of toy, but I just happened to have it with me; bought it in the square on the way to give to some one, I didn't know who, and so, if you don't mind, I wish you'd accept it, you know. It'll do to put on the table or—open cans with. If you'd rather not take it, why, chuck it out of the window!"
* * *
"It isn't that," cried Doyle; "it's only that it's much too fine——"
* * *
"Oh, no, it isn't," said Satherwaite. "Now, then, where's 'Little Alfie Ailworth'?"
* * *
Small candy canes followed the packages, and the men drew once more around the hearth, munching the pink and white confectionery, enjoyingly. Smith insisted upon having the cranberries, and wore them around his neck. The pop-corn was distributed equally, and the next day, in the parlor-car Satherwaite drew his from a pocket together with his handkerchief.
* * *
Some one struck up a song, and Doyle remembered that Satherwaite had been in the Glee Club. There was an instant clamor for a song, and Satherwaite, consenting, looked about the room.
* * *
"Haven't any thump-box," said Smith. "Can't you go it alone?"
* * *
Satherwaite thought he could, and did. He had a rich tenor voice, and he sang all the songs he knew. When it could be done, by hook or by crook, the others joined in the chorus; not too loudly, for it was getting late and proctors have sharp ears. When the last refrain had been repeated for the third time, and silence reigned for the moment, they heard the bell in the near-by tower. They counted its strokes; eight—nine—ten—eleven—twelve.
* * *
"Merry Christmas, all!" cried Smith.
* * *
In the clamor that ensued, Satherwaite secured his coat and hat. He shook hands all around. Smith insisted upon sharing the cranberries with him, and so looped a string gracefully about his neck. When Satherwaite backed out the door, he still held Doak's pet pipe clenched between his teeth, and Doak, knowing it, said not a word.
* * *
"Hope you'll come back and see us," called Doyle.
* * *
"That's right, old man, don't forget us!" shouted Ailworth.
* * *
And Satherwaite, promising again and again not to, stumbled his way down the dark stairs.
* * *
Outside, he glanced gratefully up at the lighted panes. Then he grinned, and, scooping a handful of snow, sent it fairly against the glass. Instantly, the windows banged up, a
nd six heads thrust themselves out.
* * *
"Good night! Merry Christmas, old man! Happy New Year!"
