The Second Christmas Megapack

by Robert Reginald

  “Ye better set still, little feller,” he admonished.

  The little feller seemed in no wise astonished to find himself abroad with a perfect stranger and his courage and good cheer were not lost upon The Hopper. He wanted to be severe, to vent his rage for the day’s calamities upon the only human being within range, but in spite of himself he felt no animosity toward the friendly little bundle of humanity beside him. Still, he had stolen a baby and it was incumbent upon him to free himself at once of the appalling burden; but a baby is not so easily disposed of. He could not, without seriously imperiling his liberty, return to the cottage. It was the rule of house-breakers, he recalled, to avoid babies. He had heard it said by burglars of wide experience and unquestioned wisdom that babies were the most dangerous of all burglar alarms. All things considered, kidnapping and automobile theft were not a happy combination with which to appear before a criminal court. The Hopper was vexed because the child did not cry; if he had shown a bad disposition The Hopper might have abandoned him; but the youngster was the cheeriest and most agreeable of traveling companions. Indeed, The Hopper’s spirits rose under his continued “goo-gooing” and chirruping.

  “Nice little Shaver!” he said, patting the child’s knees.

  Little Shaver was so pleased by this friendly demonstration that he threw up his arms in an effort to embrace The Hopper.

  “Bil-lee,” he gurgled delightedly.

  The Hopper was so astonished at being addressed in his own lawful name by a strange baby that he barely averted a collision with a passing motor truck. It was unbelievable that the baby really knew his name, but perhaps it was a good omen that he had hit upon it. The Hopper’s resentment against the dark fate that seemed to pursue him vanished. Even though he had stolen a baby, it was a merry, brave little baby who didn’t mind at all being run away with! He dismissed the thought of planting the little shaver at a door, ringing the bell and running away; this was no way to treat a friendly child that had done him no injury, and The Hopper highly resolved to do the square thing by the youngster even at personal inconvenience and risk.

  The snow was now falling in generous Christmasy flakes, and the high speed the car had again attained was evidently deeply gratifying to the young person, whose reckless tumbling about made it necessary for The Hopper to keep a hand on him.

  “Steady, little un; steady!” The Hopper kept mumbling.

  His wits were busy trying to devise some means of getting rid of the youngster without exposing himself to the danger of arrest. By this time some one was undoubtedly busily engaged in searching for both baby and car; the police far and near would be notified, and would be on the lookout for a smart roadster containing a stolen child.

  “Merry Christmas!” a boy shouted from a farm gate.

  “M’y Kwismus!” piped Shaver.

  The Hopper decided to run the machine home and there ponder the disposition of his blithe companion with the care the unusual circumstances demanded.

  “’Urry up; me’s goin’ ’ome to me’s gwanpa’s kwismus t’ee!”

  “Right ye be, little un; right ye be!” affirmed The Hopper.

  The youngster was evidently blessed with a sanguine and confiding nature. His reference to his grandfather’s Christmas tree impinged sharply upon The Hopper’s conscience. Christmas had never figured very prominently in his scheme of life. About the only Christmases that he recalled with any pleasure were those that he had spent in prison, and those were marked only by Christmas dinners varying with the generosity of a series of wardens.

  But Shaver was entitled to all the joys of Christmas, and The Hopper had no desire to deprive him of them.

  “Keep a-larfin’, Shaver, keep a-larfin’,” said the Hopper. “Ole Hop ain’t a-goin’ to hurt ye!”

  The Hopper, feeling his way cautiously round the fringes of New Haven, arrived presently at Happy Hill Farm, where he ran the car in among the chicken sheds behind the cottage and carefully extinguished the lights.

  “Now, Shaver, out ye come!”

  Whereupon Shaver obediently jumped into his arms.

  III.

  The Hopper knocked twice at the back door, waited an instant, and knocked again. As he completed the signal the door was opened guardedly. A man and woman surveyed him in hostile silence as he pushed past them, kicked the door shut, and deposited the blinking child on the kitchen table. Humpy, the one-eyed, jumped to the windows and jammed the green shades close into the frames. The woman scowlingly waited for the head of the house to explain himself, and this, with the perversity of one who knows the dramatic value of suspense, he was in no haste to do.

  “Well,” Mary questioned sharply. “What ye got there, Bill?”

  The Hopper was regarding Shaver with a grin of benevolent satisfaction. The youngster had seized a bottle of catsup and was making heroic efforts to raise it to his mouth, and the Hopper was intensely tickled by Shaver’s efforts to swallow the bottle. Mrs. Stevens, alias Weeping Mary, was not amused, and her husband’s enjoyment of the child’s antics irritated her.

  “Come out with ut, Bill!” she commanded, seizing the bottle. “What ye been doin’?”

  Shaver’s big blue eyes expressed surprise and displeasure at being deprived of his plaything, but he recovered quickly and reached for a plate with which he began thumping the table.

  “Out with ut, Hop!” snapped Humpy nervously. “Nothin’ wuz said about kidnappin’, an’ I don’t stand for ut!”

  “When I heard the machine comin’ in the yard I knowed somethin’ was wrong an’ I guess it couldn’t be no worse,” added Mary, beginning to cry. “You hadn’t no right to do ut, Bill. Hookin’ a buzz-buzz an’ a kid an’ when we wuz playin’ the white card! You ought t’ ’a’ told me, Bill, what ye went to town fer, an’ it bein’ Christmas, an’ all.”

  That he should have chosen for his fall the Christmas season of all times was reprehensible, a fact which Mary and Humpy impressed upon him in the strongest terms. The Hopper was fully aware of the inopportuneness of his transgressions, but not to the point of encouraging his wife to abuse him.

  As he clumsily tried to unfasten Shaver’s hood, Mary pushed him aside and with shaking fingers removed the child’s wraps. Shaver’s cheeks were rosy from his drive through the cold; he was a plump, healthy little shaver and The Hopper viewed him with intense pride. Mary held the hood and coat to the light and inspected them with a sophisticated eye. They were of excellent quality and workmanship, and she shook her head and sighed deeply as she placed them carefully on a chair.

  “It ain’t on the square, Hop,” protested Humpy, whose lone eye expressed the most poignant sorrow at The Hopper’s derelictions. Humpy was tall and lean, with a thin, many-lined face. He was an ill-favored person at best, and his habit of turning his head constantly as though to compel his single eye to perform double service gave one an impression of restless watchfulness.

  “Cute little Shaver, ain’t ’e? Give Shaver somethin’ to eat, Mary. I guess milk’ll be the right ticket considerin’ th’ size of ’im. How ole you make ’im? Not more’n three, I reckon?”

  “Two. He ain’t more’n two, that kid.”

  “A nice little feller; you’re a cute un, ain’t ye, Shaver?”

  Shaver nodded his head solemnly. Having wearied of playing with the plate he gravely inspected the trio; found something amusing in Humpy’s bizarre countenance and laughed merrily. Finding no response to his friendly overtures he appealed to Mary.

  “Me wants me’s paw-widge,” he announced.

  “Porridge,” interpreted Humpy with the air of one whose superior breeding makes him the proper arbiter of the speech of children of high social station. Whereupon Shaver appreciatively poked his forefinger into Humpy’s surviving optic.

  “I’ll see what I got,” muttered Mary. “What ye used t’ eatin’ for supper, honey?”

  The “honey” was a concession, and The Hopper, who was giving Shaver his watch to play with, bent a commendatory glance upon
his spouse.

  “Go on an’ tell us what ye done,” said Mary, doggedly busying herself about the stove.

  The Hopper drew a chair to the table to be within reach of Shaver and related succinctly his day’s adventures.

  “A dip!” moaned Mary as he described the seizure of the purse in the subway.

  “You hadn’t no right to do ut, Hop!” bleated Humpy, who had tipped his chair against the wall and was sucking a cold pipe. And then, professional curiosity overmastering his shocked conscience, he added: “What’d she measure, Hop?”

  The Hopper grinned.

  “Flubbed! Nothin’ but papers,” he confessed ruefully.

  Mary and Humpy expressed their indignation and contempt in unequivocal terms, which they repeated after he told of the suspected “bull” whose presence on the local had so alarmed him. A frank description of his flight and of his seizure of the roadster only added to their bitterness.

  Humpy rose and paced the floor with the quick, short stride of men habituated to narrow spaces. The Hopper watched the telltale step so disagreeably reminiscent of evil times and shrugged his shoulders impatiently.

  “Set down, Hump; ye make me nervous. I got thinkin’ to do.”

  “Ye’d better be quick about doin’ ut!” Humpy snorted with an oath.

  “Cut the cussin’!” The Hopper admonished sharply. Since his retirement to private life he had sought diligently to free his speech of profanity and thieves’ slang, as not only unbecoming in a respectable chicken farmer, but likely to arouse suspicions as to his origin and previous condition of servitude. “Can’t ye see Shaver ain’t use to ut? Shaver’s a little gent; he’s a reg’ler little juke; that’s wot Shaver is.”

  “The more ’way up he is the worse fer us,” whimpered Humpy. “It’s kidnappin’, that’s wot ut is!”

  “That’s wot it ain’t,” declared The Hopper, averting a calamity to his watch, which Shaver was swinging by its chain. “He was took by accident I tell ye! I’m goin’ to take Shaver back to his ma—ain’t I, Shaver?”

  “Take ’im back!” echoed Mary.

  Humpy crumpled up in his chair at this new evidence of The Hopper’s insanity.

  “I’m goin’ to make a Chris’mas present o’ Shaver to his ma,” reaffirmed The Hopper, pinching the nearer ruddy cheek of the merry, contented guest.

  Shaver kicked The Hopper in the stomach and emitted a chortle expressive of unshakable confidence in The Hopper’s ability to restore him to his lawful owners. This confidence was not, however, manifested toward Mary, who had prepared with care the only cereal her pantry afforded, and now approached Shaver, bowl and spoon in hand. Shaver, taken by surprise, inspected his supper with disdain and spurned it with a vigor that sent the spoon rattling across the floor.

  “Me wants me’s paw-widge bowl! Me wants me’s own paw-widge bowl!” he screamed.

  Mary expostulated; Humpy offered advice as to the best manner of dealing with the refractory Shaver, who gave further expression to his resentment by throwing The Hopper’s watch with violence against the wall. That the table-service of The Hopper’s establishment was not to Shaver’s liking was manifested in repeated rejections of the plain white bowl in which Mary offered the porridge. He demanded his very own porridge bowl with the increasing vehemence of one who is willing to starve rather than accept so palpable a substitute. He threw himself back on the table and lay there kicking and crying. Other needs now occurred to Shaver: he wanted his papa; he wanted his mamma; he wanted to go to his gwan’pa’s. He clamored for Santa Claus and numerous Christmas trees which, it seemed, had been promised him at the houses of his kinsfolk. It was amazing and bewildering that the heart of one so young could desire so many things that were not immediately attainable. He had begun to suspect that he was among strangers who were not of his way of life, and this was fraught with the gravest danger.

  “They’ll hear ’im hollerin’ in China,” wailed the pessimistic Humpy, running about the room and examining the fastenings of doors and windows. “Folks goin’ along the road’ll hear ’im, an’ it’s terms fer the whole bunch!”

  The Hopper began pacing the floor with Shaver, while Humpy and Mary denounced the child for unreasonableness and lack of discipline, not overlooking the stupidity and criminal carelessness of The Hopper in projecting so lawless a youngster into their domestic circle.

  “Twenty years, that’s wot ut is!” mourned Humpy.

  “Ye kin get the chair fer kidnappin’,” Mary added dolefully. “Ye gotta get ’im out o’ here, Bill.”

  Pleasant predictions of a long prison term with capital punishment as the happy alternative failed to disturb The Hopper. To their surprise and somewhat to their shame he won the Shaver to a tractable humor. There was nothing in The Hopper’s known past to justify any expectation that he could quiet a crying baby, and yet Shaver with a child’s unerring instinct realized that The Hopper meant to be kind. He patted The Hopper’s face with one fat little paw, chokingly declaring that he was hungry.

  “’Course Shaver’s hungry; an’ Shaver’s goin’ to eat nice porridge Aunt Mary made fer ’im. Shaver’s goin’ to have ’is own porridge bowl to-morry—yes, sir-ee, oo is, little Shaver!”

  Restored to the table, Shaver opened his mouth in obedience to The Hopper’s patient pleading and swallowed a spoonful of the mush, Humpy holding the bowl out of sight in tactful deference to the child’s delicate æsthetic sensibilities. A tumbler of milk was sipped with grateful gasps.

  The Hopper grinned, proud of his success, while Mary and Humpy viewed his efforts with somewhat grudging admiration, and waited patiently until The Hopper took the wholly surfeited Shaver in his arms and began pacing the floor, humming softly. In normal circumstances The Hopper was not musical, and Humpy and Mary exchanged looks which, when interpreted, pointed to nothing less than a belief that the owner of Happy Hill Farm was bereft of his senses. There was some question as to whether Shaver should be undressed. Mary discouraged the idea and Humpy took a like view.

  “Ye gotta chuck ’im quick; that’s what ye gotta do,” said Mary hoarsely. “We don’t want ’im sleepin’ here.”

  Whereupon The Hopper demonstrated his entire independence by carrying the Shaver to Humpy’s bed and partially undressing him. While this was in progress, Shaver suddenly opened his eyes wide and raising one foot until it approximated the perpendicular, reached for it with his chubby hands.

  “Sant’ Claus comin’; m’y Kwismus!”

  “Jes’ listen to Shaver!” chuckled The Hopper. “’Course Santy is comin,’ an’ we’re goin’ to hang up Shaver’s stockin’, ain’t we, Shaver?”

  He pinned both stockings to the foot-board of Humpy’s bed. By the time this was accomplished under the hostile eyes of Mary and Humpy, Shaver slept the sleep of the innocent.

  IV.

  They watched the child in silence for a few minutes and then Mary detached a gold locket from his neck and bore it to the kitchen for examination.

  “Ye gotta move quick, Hop,” Humpy urged. “The white card’s what we wuz all goin’ to play. We wuz fixed nice here, an’ things goin’ easy; an’ the yard full o’ br’ilers. I don’t want to do no more time. I’m an ole man, Hop.”

  “Cut ut!” ordered The Hopper, taking the locket from Mary and weighing it critically in his hand. They bent over him as he scrutinized the face on which was inscribed:

  Roger Livingston Talbot—June 13, 1913

  “Lemme see; he’s two an’ a harf. Ye purty nigh guessed ’im right, Mary.”

  The sight of the gold trinket, the probability that the Shaver belonged to a family of wealth, proved disturbing to Humpy’s late protestations of virtue.

  “They’d be a heap o’ kale in ut, Hop. His folks is rich, I reckon. Ef we wuzn’t playin’ the white card—”

  Ignoring this shocking evidence of Humpy’s moral instability, The Hopper became lost in reverie, meditatively drawing at his pipe.

  “We ain’t never goin’ to quit playi
n’ ut square,” he announced, to Mary’s manifest relief. “I hadn’t ought t’ ’a’ done th’ dippin’. It were a mistake. My ole head wuzn’t workin’ right er I wouldn’t ’a’ slipped. But ye needn’t jump on me no more.”

  “Wot ye goin’ to do with that kid? Ye tell me that!” demanded Mary, unwilling too readily to accept The Hopper’s repentance at face value.

  “I’m goin’ to take ’im to ’is folks, that’s wot I’m goin’ to do with ’im,” announced The Hopper.

  “Yer crazy—yer plum’ crazy!” cried Humpy, slapping his knees excitedly. “Ye kin take ’im to an orphant asylum an’ tell um ye found ’im in that machine ye lifted. And mebbe ye’ll git by with ut an’ mebbe ye won’t, but ye gotta keep me out of ut!”

  “I found the machine in th’ road, right here by th’ house; an’ th’ kid was in ut all by hisself. An’ bein’ humin an’ respectible I brought ’im in to keep ’im from freezin’ t’ death,” said The Hopper, as though repeating lines he was committing to memory. “They ain’t nobody can say as I didn’t. Ef I git pinched, that’s my spiel to th’ cops. It ain’t kidnappin’; it’s life-savin’, that’s wot ut is! I’m a-goin’ back an’ have a look at that place where I got ’im. Kind o’ queer they left the kid out there in the buzz-wagon; mighty queer, now’s I think of ut. Little house back from the road; lots o’ trees an’ bushes in front. Didn’t seem to be no lights. He keeps talkin’ about Chris’mas at his grandpa’s. Folks must ’a’ been goin’ to take th’ kid somewheres fer Chris’mas. I guess it’ll throw a skeer into ’em to find him up an’ gone.”

  “They’s rich, an’ all the big bulls’ll be lookin’ fer ’im; ye’d better phone the New Haven cops ye’ve picked ’im up. Then they’ll come out, an’ yer spiel about findin’ ’im’ll sound easy an’ sensible like.”

  The Hopper, puffing his pipe philosophically, paid no heed to Humpy’s suggestion even when supported warmly by Mary.

  “I gotta find some way o’ puttin’ th’ kid back without seein’ no cops. I’ll jes’ take a sneak back an’ have a look at th’ place,” said The Hopper. “I ain’t goin’ to turn Shaver over to no cops. Ye can’t take no chances with ’em. They don’t know nothin’ about us bein’ here, but they ain’t fools, an’ I ain’t goin’ to give none o’ ’em a squint at me!”