When Della reached home her intoxication gave way a little to prudence and reason. She got out her curling irons and lighted the gas and went to work repairing the ravages made by generosity added to love. Which is always a tremendous task, dear friends—a mammoth task.
Within forty minutes her head was covered with tiny, close-lying curls that made her look wonderfully like a truant schoolboy. She looked at her reflection in the mirror long, carefully, and critically.
“If Jim doesn’t kill me,” she said to herself, “before he takes a second look at me, he’ll say I look like a Coney Island chorus girl. But what could I do—oh! what could I do with a dollar and eighty-seven cents?”
At seven o’clock the coffee was made and the frying-pan was on the back of the stove hot and ready to cook the chops.
Jim was never late. Della doubled the fob chain in her hand and sat on the corner of the table near the door that he always entered. Then she heard his step on the stair away down on the first flight, and she turned white for just a moment. She had a habit of saying a little silent prayer about the simplest everyday things, and now she whispered: “Please God, make him think I am still pretty.”
The door opened and Jim stepped in and closed it. He looked thin and very serious. Poor fellow, he was only twenty-two—and to be burdened with a family! He needed a new overcoat and he was without gloves.
Jim stopped inside the door, as immovable as a setter at the scent of quail. His eyes were fixed upon Della, and there was an expression in them that she could not read, and it terrified her. It was not anger, nor surprise, nor disapproval, nor horror, nor any of the sentiments that she had been prepared for. He simply stared at her fixedly with that peculiar expression on his face.
Della wriggled off the table and went for him.
“Jim, darling,” she cried, “don’t look at me that way. I had my hair cut off and sold because I couldn’t have lived through Christmas without giving you a present. It’ll grow out again—you won’t mind, will you? I just had to do it. My hair grows awfully fast. Say `Merry Christmas!’ Jim, and let’s be happy. You don’t know what a nice—what a beautiful, nice gift I’ve got for you.”
“You’ve cut off your hair?” asked Jim, laboriously, as if he had not arrived at that patent fact yet even after the hardest mental labor.
“Cut it off and sold it,” said Della. “Don’t you like me just as well, anyhow? I’m me without my hair, ain’t I?”
Jim looked about the room curiously.
“You say your hair is gone?” he said, with an air almost of idiocy.
“You needn’t look for it,” said Della. “It’s sold, I tell you—sold and gone, too. It’s Christmas Eve, boy. Be good to me, for it went for you. Maybe the hairs of my head were numbered,” she went on with sudden serious sweetness, “but nobody could ever count my love for you. Shall I put the chops on, Jim?”
Out of his trance Jim seemed quickly to wake. He enfolded his Della. For ten seconds let us regard with discreet scrutiny some inconsequential object in the other direction. Eight dollars a week or a million a year—what is the difference? A mathematician or a wit would give you the wrong answer. The magi brought valuable gifts, but that was not among them. This dark assertion will be illuminated later on.
Jim drew a package from his overcoat pocket and threw it upon the table.
“Don’t make any mistake, Dell,” he said, “about me. I don’t think there’s anything in the way of a haircut or a shave or a shampoo that could make me like my girl any less. But if you’ll unwrap that package you may see why you had me going a while at first.”
White fingers and nimble tore at the string and paper. And then an ecstatic scream of joy; and then, alas! a quick feminine change to hysterical tears and wails, necessitating the immediate employment of all the comforting powers of the lord of the flat.
For there lay The Combs—the set of combs, side and back, that Della had worshipped long in a Broadway window. Beautiful combs, pure tortoise shell, with jeweled rims—just the shade to wear in the beautiful vanished hair. They were expensive combs, she knew, and her heart had simply craved and yearned over them without the least hope of possession. And now, they were hers, but the tresses that should have adorned the coveted adornments were gone.
But she hugged them to her bosom, and at length she was able to look up with dim eyes and a smile and say: “My hair grows so fast, Jim!”
And then Della leaped up like a little singed cat and cried, “Oh, oh!”
Jim had not yet seen his beautiful present. She held it out to him eagerly upon her open palm. The dull precious metal seemed to flash with a reflection of her bright and ardent spirit.
“Isn’t it a dandy, Jim? I hunted all over town to find it. You’ll have to look at the time a hundred times a day now. Give me your watch. I want to see how it looks on it.”
Instead of obeying, Jim tumbled down on the couch and put his hands under the back of his head and smiled.
“Dell,” said he, “let’s put our Christmas presents away and keep ’em a while. They’re too nice to use just at present. I sold the watch to get the money to buy your combs. And now suppose you put the chops on.”
The magi, as you know, were wise men—wonderfully wise men—who brought gifts to the Babe in the manger. They invented the art of giving Christmas presents. Being wise, their gifts were no doubt wise ones, possibly bearing the privilege of exchange in case of duplication. And here I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house. But in a last word to the wise of these days let it be said that of all who give gifts these two were the wisest. Of all who give and receive gifts, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they are wisest. They are the magi.
THE LITTLE MIXER, by Lillian Nicholson Shearon
There was no fault to be found with the present itself; the trouble lay in the method of transportation. This thought was definite enough in Hannah’s mind, but she had to rely upon a seven-year-old vocabulary for expression, and grown-ups are notably dull of comprehension. Even mothers don’t always understand without being told exactly in so many words.
“I didn’t say the kimono wasn’t nice, Mama,” explained Hannah, “and ’course Cousin Carrie was awful good to send it to me, but—but Santy Claus is going to bring Virginia one tomorrow night, down the chimbley!”
Rose Joseph slipped the absurd little garment over her daughter’s dainty lingerie frock, and stood her on a chair that she might view herself in the narrow mirror between the windows of the living-room. The child was as lovely as a flower, but vanity was still sound asleep in her soul, and she glanced indifferently at the reflection, her body sagging with disappointment. “It is just like those little Japanese girls wear,” her mother cried in that over-enthusiastic adult tone which warns a child he is about to be the recipient of a gold brick. “I am sure Virginia’s can’t be any nicer than this one!”
“But, Mama, Santy Claus is going bring hers down the chimbley. Mine”—her voice dropped to a mournful key—“mine came through the door!”
“But, darling, what difference does that make just so you get it?”
Pity for her mother’s barren childhood shone in Hannah’s soft black eyes. “That’s—that’s no way for presents to come,” she explained; “Mama, it’s Chris’mus.”
“It is Chanuca,” Mrs. Joseph responded firmly. “Remember you are a Jewess, dear.”
“I can’t never forget it,” said the child with a catch in her voice, “’specially at Chris’mus.”
“But, darling, the Jewish children have Chanuca; it comes about the same time as Christmas, and amounts to the same thing.”
Hannah shook her bronze curls. “Chanuca is because the children of Israel took Jerusalem and the temple away from the bad people,” she recited glibly, “and—and you say prayers, and light candles—eight days, and—and all your uncles and aunts and cousins send you thi
ngs, but Santy Claus, he don’t pay any ’tention to Chanuca. Chris’mus is just one day, and Santy Claus comes down the chimbley and brings things to all good children—’cept little Jews—because it is the birthday of our Savior.”
Mrs. Joseph was silent so long that Hannah felt she had convinced her mother of the superiority of the Gentile Christmas over the Jewish Chanuca, and she continued more in detail. “And the children’s kinfolks just give Santy Claus money, and tell him what to buy, and he brings the presents, and nobody has to bother about it ’cept him.”
“Hannah,” Mrs. Joseph interrupted coldly, “who told you about the birthday of—of the Savior?”
“Nellie Halloran,” answered Hannah, “and Virginia, too. They’ve—they’ve got the same one.”
“The same what?”
“The same Savior,” Hannah explained.
“Darling, hasn’t Mama told you many times, that you must never, never talk about religion to Nellie and Virginia?”
“Oh, we don’t, Mama, never, never! But ’course we got to talk about Santy Claus, and things.”
There seemed to be no reasonable objection to that, so Mrs. Joseph dropped the subject. She spent a great deal of time folding the despised and rejected kimono into its tissue-paper wrappings. Presently she brought a narrow parcel from another room.
“See what Uncle Aaron has sent you, dear,” she cried gaily. “A little man; you wind him up in the back with this key—so—and then he dances and plays the fiddle!”
Hannah forced a polite giggle at the little man’s antics. He too rested under the ban of having come “through the door,” and her attention soon wandered.
“Nellie got a jumping-jack in the very top of her stocking last Chris’mus; ’cause she’s such a jumping-jack herself, her papa said. You know, Mama, Santy Claus puts nuts and candy, and little things in your stocking and puts your big things all around the room. Sometimes he brings a tree and hangs them all on a tree. Virginia and Nellie want a tree and a new doll. Virginia gets a new doll every Chris’mus, and she’s got every doll Santy ever brought her—even her little, baby, rubber doll. She’s eight years old and will have eight dolls! But Nellie ain’t—hasn’t saved a single one, and she’s scared she won’t get one this Chris’mus—awful scared.”
“Why, dear?” asked Mrs. Joseph, when Hannah paused for breath.
“Because the doll Santy brought Nellie last Chris’mus, you know what? She was playing Indian with her brother one day, and chopped her head off! And Nellie’s mama says she don’t know whether old Santy’s going to forget that or not! But Nellie, she says she prays hard to the Virgin Mary every night—if she don’t go to sleep too quick. Mama, what’s a virgin? Mama, what’s—”
“A virgin is a lady who has never been married,” answered Mrs. Joseph, putting the neglected musician back into his box.
Hannah wrestled alone for a moment with a mighty ecclesiastical problem, and then gave it up.
“The Virgin Mary is God’s mother,” Hannah continued. “That’s her picture over our fireplace”—pointing to a copy of a crude thirteenth century Madonna and Child in a carved Gothic frame, which Eli and Rose Joseph had bought in Italy while on their wedding trip. Flanked now by candles burning in silver candelabra in honor of Chanuca, it gave the mantel a passing resemblance to a Catholic shrine.
“I don’t think God’s mother is very pretty, do you, Mama? And I think Nellie’s little brother is a heap prettier’n God was when He was a baby.”
Mrs. Joseph showed signs of having reached the limit. “Hannah,” she said firmly, “it is time you were in bed.”
“But, Papa hasn’t come home yet.”
“Papa will be late tonight, dear.”
“The Chris’mus rush,” sighed Hannah. “Mama, you haven’t looked down my throat today,” she added, playing for time.
Mrs. Joseph went through the daily ritual. “It looks all right,” she pronounced.
“It is all right,” came the triumphant answer. “It is never going to be sore again. Virginia says—”
“Never mind what Virginia says. If your throat ever hurts you the least little bit, you are to come to me instantly and tell me. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Mama, but it isn’t going to hurt anymore,” Hannah insisted.
“Come on upstairs to bed.”
Still Hannah hung back. She had not played her trump card yet, and the time was short. She caught her mother’s slim white hand in hers and fingered nervously at the rings. “Mama,” she almost whispered, “Virginia says it’s Jewish mamas’ fault that Santy Claus don’t come to see Jewish children. If the mamas would just go to Santy and tell him to come—You will, won’t you, Mama? Please, Mama!”
“Hannah, not another word about Christmas and Santy Claus—not—another—word!”
Hannah swallowed something that came in her throat, and bravely winked back her tears. “Can’t Mandy put me to bed?”
“No, dear; Mandy is busy in the kitchen. Mama will put you to bed and tell you stories.” She bent down and kissed the child tenderly.
Hannah flung her arms about her mother’s neck. She loved the feel of the soft throat and the gently curving bosom against her little cheek, and the fragrance of her mother’s hair and silken laces. She didn’t know that her mother looked like a portrait by Raphael, but she did know that her mama was the prettiest, sweetest mama in all the world; and yet—
“Mama, I’m so tired of stories about the children of Israel. They never did anything funny. Mandy tells me tales about the old plantashun, when her ma was a slave, and about ole Marse, and ole Mis’ going to town and giving Santy Claus money so’s he’d bring beads and ‘juice’ harps and things to the little niggers; and he never forgot one, from the biggest to the littlest darky, Santy didn’t.”
The child’s body began to tremble with repressed sobs. “I—I wisht I was a—a little darky! It’s—it’s awful—sad to be a little Jewish child at Chris’mus time.”
And then the storm broke.
Two hours later Eli Joseph’s tired step sounded on the veranda, and Rose hurried to admit him, lifting a silencing hand as soon as he had crossed the threshold. “Hannah has just gone to sleep,” she whispered. “No—no, she’s not sick at all.” He placed an arm around her and drew her into the library.
“Eli, your overcoat is wet,” she exclaimed, untwining her arms from his neck.
“Snow,” he said, his good-looking boyish face lighting up with pleasure. “It seems we are to have a white Christmas after all.”
“Christmas!” she cried; “I wish I could never hear that word again.”
“Well, I’m glad it comes only once a year. Tonight ends my siege, though. Tomorrow night Stein goes on duty, and I come home for dinner to stay. Rose, darling, you look all tired out. You shouldn’t wait up for me.”
“It isn’t that. It’s Hannah. She cried for more than an hour tonight, and but for Mandy and her tales I believe she would still be crying.” And she detailed the scene to him.
“But, good gracious, Rose, let Santa Claus bring her presents to her,” said Eli, when she had finished. “Hannah’s nothing but a baby.”
“She is beginning to think for herself.”
“As you did at a very early age,” he reminded her, “and your father the strictest of orthodox rabbis. How old were you when you began slipping off to the reformed temple?”
“I broke my father’s heart,” she said somberly. “I’ll be punished through Hannah.”
“Not unless you let Hannah think faster than you do. And remember,” he added teasingly, “if you hadn’t run off to the reformed temple you would never have met me.”
“Outside, at the foot of the steps,” she recalled. “I would never have met you inside.”
“Maybe I am lax,” he acknowledged, “but it seems to me that if you are living a decent life yourself, and giving the other fellow a square deal, you are pretty nearly fulfilling the law and the prophets.”
“And what d
o you suppose is happening to Hannah with a Christian Science family on one side and Roman Catholics on the other?” she demanded tragically. “She’s decided not to take any more medicine, because Virginia Lawrence doesn’t. And she has Nellie Halloran’s every expression about the Virgin and the Savior. Not only that, but she has made friends with a Christian Science practitioner through the Lawrences, and calls him ‘my friend Mr. Jackson.’ She runs to meet him and walks the length of the block with him every time he passes.”
“Hannah is certainly a natural born mixer,” laughed the father. “We are saving ourselves trouble by giving her the best there is to mix with!”
“Eli, I am afraid we made a mistake moving out here, away from all our people.”
“No, we didn’t make a mistake,” he declared earnestly. “The Square was no place to bring up Hannah, among those parvenu Jews. We have the prettiest home on the heights and the best people in town for neighbors.”
“Our child is losing her identity as a Jewess.”
“Let her find it again as an American,” he replied. “Frankly, Rose, I don’t lose any sleep over trying to keep my identity as a Jew intact. If a Jew doesn’t like it here, let him go back to Palestine or to the country that oppressed him, I say. I’ve got the same amount of patience with these hyphenated Americans as I have with the Jews who try to segregate themselves and dot the map with New Jerusalems. Where’s the sense in throwing yourself into the melting-pot, glad of the chance, and then kicking because you come out something different?—Come on to bed, dear; you are as pale as a ghost, and I’m so tired I can’t see straight. Our baby is all right. Don’t you worry.”
The Second Christmas Megapack Page 59
