The Christmas Megapack

by Reginald Robert

  “Has the boy gone to bed?” Abel asked without preface.

  “Yes,” Mary answered, “he has. I’m sorry.”

  “Never mind,” Simeon whispered, “you can give him these in the morning.”

  Mary, her shawl half hiding her face, stooped to take what the three lifted.

  “They ain’t presents, you know,” Abel assured her positively. “They’re just—well, just to let him know.”

  Mary set the strange assortment on the floor of the dining room—the things that were to be nothing in themselves, only just “to let him know.”

  “Thank you for him,” she said gently. “And thank you for me,” she added.

  Ebenezer fumbled for a moment at his beaver hat, and took it off. Then the other two did so to their firm-fixed caps. And with an impulse that came from no one could tell whom, the three spoke—the first time hesitatingly, the next time together and confidently.

  “Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas,” they said.

  Mary Chavah lifted her hand.

  “Merry Christmas!” she cried.

  COLONEL CROCKETT’S CO-OPERATIVE CHRISTMAS, by Rupert Hughes

  Foreword

  Of all the strange gatherings that have distinguished Madison Square Garden, the strangest was probably on the occasion, last Christmas, when the now well-known Colonel D. A. Crockett, of Waco, rented the vast auditorium for one thousand dollars, and threw it open to the public. As he is going to do it again this coming Christmas, an account of the con-, in-, and re-ception of his scheme may interest some of the thousands who find themselves every Christmas in the Colonel’s plight. My plan to describe it was frustrated by the receipt, from his wife, of three letters he wrote her. It seems only fair, then, that the author of an achievement which is likely to become an institution should be allowed to be the author of its history. I shall, therefore, content myself with publishing verbatim two of the Colonel’s own letters.

  RUPERT HUGHES

  LETTER ONE

  New York, N. Y., Dec. 26, 1904.

  FRIEND WIFE:

  The miserablest night I ever spent in all my born days—the solitariest, with no seconds—was sure this identical Christmas night in New York City. And I’ve been some lonesome, too, in my time.

  I’ve told you how, as a boy, I shipped before the mast—the wrong mast—and how the old tub bumped a reef and went down with all hands—and feet—except mine. You remember me telling how I grabbed aholt of a large wooden box and floated on to a dry spot. It knocked the wind out of my stummick considerable, but I hung on kind of unconscious till the tide went out. When I come to, I looked round to see where in Sam Hill I was at, and found I was on a little pinhead of an island about the size a freckle would be on the moon. All around was mostly sky, excepting for what was water. And me with nothing to drink it with!

  I set down hard on the box and felt as blue as all the swear words ever swore. There was nothing in sight to eat, and that made me so hungry that me and the box fell over backward. As I laid there sprawled out, with my feet up on the box, I looked between my knees and read them beautiful words, “Eat Buggins’ Biscuit,” in plain sight before me on the end of the box.

  Well, me and friend Buggins inhabited that place—about as big as one of Man Friday’s footprints—for going on four weeks. When tide was in, I held the box on my head to keep my powder dry. ’Long toward the end of my visit, just before the ship that saved me hove in sight, I began to feel a mite tired of that place. I kind o’ felt as if I’d saw about all that was int’resting on that there island. I thought I was unhappy and I had a sneaking idea I was lonesome. But I see I was mistaken. I hadn’t spent a Christmas night alone in a big city then.

  Then once when I was prospecting for our mine, I was snowed up in a pass. I reckon I’ve told you how I got typhoid fever and wrestled it out all day by my lonesome; unparalleled thirst, Boston baked brains, red flannel tongue, delirium dreamins, and self-acting emetic, down to the final blissful “Where am I at?” and on through the nice long convalescence till my limbs changed from twine strings to human members. Six weeks doing time as doctor, patient, trained nurse and fellow-Mason all in one, was being alone right smart. But it wasn’t a patch on the little metrolopis of Manhattan on Santy Claus day.

  Then once I had a rather unrestful evening out in the western part of Texas. A fellow sold me a horse right cheap, and later a crowd of gentlemen accused me of stealing it, and I was put in jail with a promise of being lynched before breakfast. That was being uncomfortable some, too. But I wished last night that my friend, Judge Watson, hadn’t come along that night and identified me. It would have saved me from New Yorkitis.

  Then there was the night when I proposed for your hand and you sent me to your pa, and he said if I ever come near again he’d sic the dogs on me. I spent that night at a safe distance from the dogs, leaning on a fence, and not noticing it was barb wire till I looked at my clothes and my hide next day. I watched your windows till the light went out and all my hope with it—and on after that till, as the poet says, till daylight doth appear.

  Then there’s the time I told you about, when—but there’s no use of making a catalog of every time I’ve been lonesome. I have taken my pen in hand to inform you that last night beat everything else on my private list of troubles. My other lonely times was when I was alone, but the lonesomest of all was in the heart of the biggest crowd on this here continent.

  There was people a-plenty. But I didn’t know one gol-darned galoot. I had plenty of money, but nobody to spend it on—except tiptakers. I was stopping at this big hotel with lugsury spread over everything, thicker than sorghum on corn pone. But lonely—why, honey, I was so lonely that, as I walked along the streets, I felt as if I’d like to break into some of the homes and compel ’em at the point of my gun to let me set in and dine with ’em.

  I felt like asking one of the bell-boys to take me home and get his ma to give me a slice of goose and let her talk to me about her folks.

  There was some four million people in a space about the size of our ranch. There was theatres to go to—but who wants to go to the theatre on Christmas?—it’s like going to church on the Fourth of July. There were dime muzhums, penny vawdevilles, dance-halls.

  There was a big dinner for news-boys. The Salvation Army and the Volunteers gave feeds to the poor. But I couldn’t qualify. I wasn’t poor. I had no home, no friends, no nothing.

  The streets got deserteder and deserteder. A few other wretches was marooned like me in the hotel corridors. We looked at each other like sneak-thieves patroling the same street. Waiters glanced at us pitiful as much as to say, “If it wasn’t for shrimps like you, I’d be home with my kids.”

  The worst of it was, I knew there were thousands of people in town in just my fix. Perhaps some of them were old friends of mine that I’d have been tickled to death to fore-gather with; or leastways, people from my State. Texas is a big place, but we’d have been brothers and sisters—or at least cousins once removed—for Christmas’ sake. But they were scattered around at the St. Regis or the Mills Hotel, the Martha Washington or somewhere, while I was at the Waldorf-hyphen-Astoria.

  It was like the two men that Dickens—I believe it was Dickens—tells about: Somebody gives A a concertina, but he can’t play on it; winter coming on and no overcoat; he can’t wear the concertina any more than he can tootle it. A few blocks away is a fellow, Mr. B. He can play a concertina something grand, but he hasn’t got one and his fingers itch. He spends all his ready money on a brand-new overcoat, and just then his aunt sends him another one. He thinks he’ll just swap one of them overcoats for a concertina. So he advertises in an exchange column. About the same time, A advertises that he’ll trade one house-broken concertina for a nice overcoat. But does either A or B ever see B’s or A’s advertisements? Not on your beautiful daguerreotype.

  That was the way with us-all in New York. The town was full of lonesome strangers, and we went moping round, stumbling over each other and not
daring to speak.

  They call us “transients” here. It’s like a common sailor that’s lost at sea; he’s only a “casualty.” So us poor, homeless dogs in New York are only transients. Why, do you know, I was that lonely I could have stood out in the square like a lonely old cow in the rain, and just mooed for somebody to take me in.

  I’d have telegraphed for you and the childern to come to town, but Texas is so far away, and you’d have got here too late, and you couldn’t come anyway, being sick, as you wrote me, and one of the kids having malary. How is his blessed self today? I hope you’re feeling better. Telegraph if you ain’t, and I’ll take the first train home.

  Well, last night I ate a horrible mockery of a Christmas dinner in a deserted restaurant, and it gave me heartburn (in addition to heartache) and a whole brood-stable of nightmares. I went to bed early, and stayed awake late. Gee! that was an awful night.

  I tried Philosophy—the next station beyond Despair. I said to myself, “You old fool, why in the name of all that’s sensible should you feel so excited about one day more than another?” I wasn’t so lonely the day before Christmas, I ain’t so lonely today, but then I was like a small boy with the mumps and the earache on the Fourth of July. The firecrackers will pop just as lively another day, but—well, the universe was simply throwed all out of gear, like it must have been when Joshua held up the moon—or was it the sun?

  You remember reading me once about—I reckon it was Mr. Aldrich’s pleasing idea of the last man on earth; everybody killed off by a pestilence or something, and him setting there by his lonely little lonesome; and what would he have done if he had heard his doorbell ring? Well, I reckon he’d have done what I’d have done if I’d met a friend—given one wild whoop, wrapped his arms round his neck, kissed him on both cheeks, and died with a faint gurgle of joy. I’d of been glad to have died so, too.

  Finally, I swore that if I ever foresaw myself being corralled again in a strange city on Christmas, I’d put on a sandwich board or something and march up and down the streets with a sign like this:

  I’m lonely! I’m homesick for a real Christmas! There must be others. Let’s get together! Meet me at the Fountain in Union Square! We’ll hang our stockings on the trees. Perhaps some snow will fall in ’em. Come one—Come all! Both great and small!

  I bet such a board would stir up a procession of exiles a mile and a half long. And we’d get together and have a good crying match on each other’s shoulders, and wring each other’s hands, while the band played Old Lang’s Sign.

  But it’s over now. I’ve lived through the game of Christmas solitaire in a big city, and I feel as relieved as a man just getting out of a dentist’s office. He’s minus a few molars, and aches considerable, but he’s full of a pleasing emptiness.

  But let me say right here, and put it in black and white: If I’m ever dragged away from home again on Christmas, I’ll take laughing-gas enough for a day and two nights, or I’ll take some violent steps to get company, if I have to hire a cayuse and a lariat and rustle Broadway, rounding up a herd of other unbranded stray cattle.

  Well, this is a long letter for me, honey, and I will close. Love and kisses to the sweet little kids and to the best wife a fellow ever had.

  Your loving

  AUSTIN

  P. S. I pulled off the deal all right. The syndicate buys the mine. I get $500,000 in cash and $500,000 in stock, and I start for home in three days. We’ll hang up our stockings on New Year’s Day.

  BETWEEN LETTERS

  The Fates accepted Colonel Crockett’s challenge, and, by an irresistible syndication of events, forced him to be alone in New York again the very next Christmas. After a series of masterly financial strokes, he had felt rich enough in his two millions to spend a year abroad with his family. A cablegram called him to America early in December, to a directors’ meeting. Expecting to return at once, he had left his family in Italy. A legal complication kept him postponing his trip from day to day; and finally an important hearing, in which he was a valued witness, was postponed by the referee—or deferee—till after the holidays. The Colonel saw himself confronted with another Christmas far away from any of his people. The first two days he spent in violent profanity, and in declining invitations which he received from business acquaintances to share their homes. Then he set out to make the occasion memorable. Once more we may leave the account to him.

  LETTER TWO

  New York, N. Y., Dec. 28, 1905

  FRIEND WIFE:

  Well, I’ve been and went and gone and done it! And golly, but it was fun—barring wishing you and the little ones had of been here, too. Next year we’ll arrange it so, for I’m going to do it again. You remember Artemus Ward’s man who “had been dead three weeks and liked it.” Well, that’s me. This camping out in New York is getting to be a habit. I’m sending you a bundle of newspaper clippings as big as a stovepipe—all about Yours Truly.

  As soon as I saw that circumstances had organized a pool to corner me and my Christmases, I spent a couple of days sending up rain-making language. Then I settled down to work like a bronco does to harness after kicking off the dashboard and snapping a couple of traces.

  “If I’ve got to be alone this Christmas,” I says to myself, “I’ll make it the gol-blamedest, crowdedest solitude ever heard of this side of the River.”

  I looked for the biggest place in town under one roof. Madison Square Garden was it. You remember it. We was there to the Horse Show—so-called. You recollect, I reckon, that the Garden holds right smart of people. At a political meeting once they got 14,000 people into it, and there was still room for Grover Cleveland to stand and make a speech.

  Well, feeling kind o’ flush and recklesslike, I decided to go and see the manager, or janitor, or whatever he is. And go I did. I says to him: “Could I rent your cute little shack for one evening—Christmas night?”

  “Certainly, sir,” he says. “There happens to be nothing doing this Christmas.”

  “How much would it set me back?” I says very polite.

  “Only one thousand plunks,” says he smiling.

  “But, my dear Gaston,” I says with a low bow, “I don’t want to buy your little Noah’s Ark for the baby. I only want to borrow it for one evening.”

  “One thou. is our bargain-counter limit,” he says. “I couldn’t make it less for the poor old Czar of Rooshy.”

  I kind o’ hesitated, remembering the time when a thousand dollars would have kept me comfortable for about three years. It’s hard to get over the habit of counting your change. Then Mr. Janitor, seeing me kind o’ groggy, says, a little less polite:

  “If that’s more than you care to pay for a single room you can get a cot for five cents on the Bowery; for a quarter you can get a whole suite.”

  That riled me. I flashed a wad of bills on him that made his eyes look like two automobile lamps. He could see it wasn’t Confederate money, either. Then I shifted my cigar to detract attention while I swallowed my Adam’s apple, and I says:

  “I was only hesitating, my boy, because I wondered if your nice young Garden would be big enough. You haven’t got a couple more to rent at the same price?”

  He wilted and caved in like a box of ice cream does just before you get home with it. Then he began to bow lower, and we cut for a new deal. He took the lead.

  He says what might I be wanting to use the Garden for?

  “Oh, I won’t bulge the walls or strain the floor,” I says. “I only want it for a Christmas tree. I am going to invite my friends to a little party.”

  “Whew, but you must be popular!” he says. “Who the dickens are you? Brother Teddy, or Mother Eddy?”

  “I’m Colonel D. Austin Crockett, of Waco,” I says as meek as I could.

  “Pleased to meet you, Colonel,” he says. “What you running for?—District Attorney? Or are you starting a new Mutual Benefit Life Assassination?”

  “Neither,” I says; “I’m a stranger in New York.”

  “But t
hese friends of yours?” he gasped. “Is all Waco coming up here on an excursion? Is the town going to move bodily?”

  “Mr. Prosecutor,” I says, “if you’ll stop cross-examining a minute, and let me tell how it all happened, it will save right smart of time. I am a stranger here to about four million people. They are strangers to me. We ought to know each other. So I’m going to give a little Madison Square Garden warming and invite ’em in.”

  “What are you going to sell ’em—prize poultry, or physical culture?”

  “I’ve nothing to sell. I’m just going to entertain ’em.”

  “Well, I’ve heard of Southern hospitality,” he says, “but this beats me. How much you going to charge a head?”

  “Nothing. Everything is to be free. Admission included.”

  “Not on your dear old Lost Cause!” he exclaims. “Leastways not in our little doll’s house. Not for ten thousand dollars! Why, man, do you realize that if you offered these New York, Brooklyn, Bronx, Hackensack and Hoboken folks a free show, more’n two thousand women would get trampled to death? Did you ever see a bargain-counter crowd on Twenty-third Street? Well, that’s only for a chance to get something they don’t want at a fishbait price. But if you offered them a free, ‘take-one’ chance—holy keewhiz!—I can just see it now! The Garden ain’t half big enough in the first place. There’s enough Take-One’ers in these parts to fill the old Coliseum. And they’d make the wild animals look like a cage of rabbits or white mice.”

  Well, the upshot of it was, he persuaded me to charge an admission; so we set it at $1.00 a head “on the hoof.” I wrote out a card and sent it to all the papers to print at advertising rates. It cost right smart, but it looked neat:

  TO EVERY STRANGER IN NEW YORK, AND HIS LADY

  If you are not otherwise engaged on Christmas night, the honor of your presence at Madison Square Garden is requested by

  DAVID AUSTIN CROCKETT

  Colonel Fifth Texas Cavalry, C. S. A.

  Music, Dancing, Refreshments, Souvenirs. For the purpose of keeping out the undesirable element a charge of $1.00 will be made.