Miss Santa Claus of the Pullman
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A quarter of an hour later when Will'm found himself on the ground again, gazing after the departing train, he was a trifle dazed with all he had seen and heard. But three things were clear in his mind. That he held in one hand a great yellow orange, in the other a box of prize pop-corn, and in his heart the precious assurance that Santa Claus would be told by one in high authority that he was a good boy.
So elated was he by this last fact, that he decided on the way home to send a letter up the chimney on his own account, especially as he knew now exactly what to ask for. He had been a bit hazy on the question before. Now he knew beyond all doubt that what he wanted more than anything in the wide world, was a ride on a Pullman car. He wanted to sit at one of those tables, and eat things that had been cooked in that mysterious kitchen, at the same time that he was flying along through the night on the wings of a mighty dragon breathing out smoke and fire as it flew.
He went in to the house by way of the shop so that he might make the bell go ting-a-ling. It was so delightfully like the bells on the camels, also like the bells on the sleigh which would be coming before so very long to bring him what he wanted.
Miss Sally Watts was sitting behind the counter, crocheting. To his question of "Where's Dranma?" she answered without looking up.
"She and Mr. Neal have driven over to Westfield. They have some business at the court house. She said you're not to go off the place again till she gets back. I was to tell you when you came in. She looked everywhere to find you before she left, because she's going to be gone till late in the afternoon. Where you been, anyhow?"
Will'm told her. Miss Sally was a neighbor who often helped in the shop at times like this, and he was always glad when such times came. It was easy to tell Miss Sally things, and presently when a few direct questions disclosed the fact that Miss Sally "bleeved" as he did, he asked her another question, which had been puzzling him ever since he had decided to ask for a ride on the train.
"How can Santa put a ride in a stocking?"
"I don't know," answered Miss Sally, still intent on her crocheting. "But then I don't really see how he can put anything in; sleds or dolls or anything of the sort. He's a mighty mysterious man to me. But then, probably he wouldn't try to put the ride in a stocking. He'd send the ticket or the money to buy it with. And he might give it to you beforehand, and not wait for stocking-hanging time, knowing how much you want it."
All this from Miss Sally because Mrs. Neal had just told her that the children were to be sent to their father the day before Christmas, and that they were to go on a Pullman car, because the ordinary coaches did not go straight through. The children were too small to risk changing cars, and he was too busy to come for them.
Will'm stayed in the shop the rest of the morning, for Miss Sally echoing the sentiment of everybody at the Junction, felt sorry for the poor little fellow who was soon to be sent away to a stepmother, and felt that it was her duty to do what she could toward making his world as pleasant as possible for him, while she had the opportunity.
Together they ate the lunch which had been left on the pantry shelves for them. Will'm helped set it out on the table. Then he went back into the shop with Miss Sally. But his endless questions "got on her nerves" after awhile, she said, and she suddenly ceased to be the good company that she had been all morning. She mended the fire in the sitting-room and told Will'm he'd better play in there till Libby came home. It was an endless afternoon, so long that after he had done everything that he could think of to pass the time, he decided he'd write his own letter and send it up the chimney himself. He couldn't possibly wait for Libby to come home and do it. He'd write a picture letter. It was easier to read pictures than print, anyhow. At least for him. He slipped back into the shop long enough to get paper and a pencil from the old secretary in the corner, and then lying on his stomach on the hearth-rug with his heels in the air, he began drawing his favorite sketch, a train of cars.
All that can be said of the picture is that one could recognize what it was meant for. The wheels were wobbly and no two of the same size, the windows zigzagged in uneven lines and were of varied shapes. The cow-catcher looked as if it could toss anything it might pick up high enough to join the cow that jumped over the moon. But it was unmistakably a train, and the long line of smoke pouring back over it from the tipsy smoke-stack showed that it was going at the top of its speed. Despite the straggling scratchy lines any art critic must acknowledge that it had in it that intangible quality known as life and "go."
It puzzled Will'm at first to know how to introduce himself into the picture so as to show that he was the one wanting a ride. Finally on top of one of the cars he drew a figure supposed to represent a boy, and after long thought, drew one just like it, except that the second figure wore a skirt. He didn't want to take the ride alone. He'd be almost afraid to go without Libby, and he knew very well that she'd like to go. She'd often played "S'posen" they were riding away off to the other side of the world on one of those trains which they watched nightly pass the sitting-room window.
He wished he could spell his name and hers. He knew only the letters with which each began, and he wasn't sure of either unless he could see the picture on the other side of the building block on which it was printed. The box of blocks was in the sitting-room closet. He brought it out, emptied it on the rug and searched until he found the block bearing the picture of a lion. That was the king of beasts, and the L on the other side which stood for Lion, stood also for Libby. Very slowly and painstakingly he copied the letter on his drawing, placing it directly across the girl's skirt so that there could be no mistake. Then he pawed over the blocks till he found the one with the picture of a whale. That was the king of fishes, and the W on the other side which stood for Whale, stood also for William. He tried putting the W across the boy, but as each leg was represented by one straight line only, bent at right angles at the bottom to make a foot, the result was confusing. He rubbed out the legs, made them anew, and put the W over the boy's head, drawing a thin line from the end of the W to the crossed scratches representing fingers. That plainly showed that the Boy and the W were one and the same, although it gave to the unenlightened the idea that the picture had something to do with flying a kite. Then he rubbed out the L on Libby's skirt and placed it over her head, likewise connecting her letter with her fingers.
The rubbing-out process gave a smudgy effect. Will'm was not satisfied with the result, and like a true artist who counts all labor as naught, which helps him towards that perfection which is his ideal, he laid aside the drawing as unworthy and began another.
The second was better. He accomplished it with a more certain touch and with no smudges, and filled with the joy of a creator, sat and looked at it a few minutes before starting it on its flight up the flue towards the Sky Road.
The great moment was over. He had just drawn back from watching it start when Libby came in. She came primly and quietly this time. She had waited to leave her overshoes on the porch, her lunch basket in the kitchen, her wraps in the entry. The white ruffled apron which she had worn all day was scarcely mussed. The bows on her narrow braids stuck out stiffly and properly. Her shoes were tied and the laces tucked in. She walked on tiptoe, and every movement showed that she was keeping up the reputation she had earned of being "so good that nobody could be any better, no matter how hard he tried." She had been that good for over a week.
Will'm ran to get the orange which had been given him that morning. He had been saving it for this moment of division. He had already opened the pop-corn box and found the prize, a little china cup no larger than a thimble, and had used it at lunch, dipping a sip at a time from his glass of milk.
The interest with which she listened to his account of finding the locket and being taken aboard the train made him feel like a hero. He hastened to increase her respect.
"Nen the man said that I was about the nicest little boy he ever saw and he would tell Santa Claus so. An' I knew everything was all right so I've just sended a letter up to tell him to please give me a ride on the Pullman train."
Libby smiled in an amused, big-sister sort of way, asking how Will'm supposed anybody could read his letters. He couldn't write anything but scratches.
"But it was a picture letter!" Will'm explained triumphantly. "Anybody can read picture letters." Then he proceeded to tell what he had made and how he had marked it with the initials of the Lion and the Whale.
To his intense surprise Libby looked first startled, then troubled, then despairing. His heart seemed to drop down into his shoes when she exclaimed in a tragic tone:
"Well, Will'm Branfield! If you haven't gone and done it! I don't know what ever is going to happen to us now!"
Then she explained. She had already written a letter for him, with Susie Peters's help, asking in writing what she had asked before by word of mouth, that he be forgiven, and requesting that he might not find his stocking empty on Christmas morning. As to what should be in it, she had left that to Santa's generosity, because Will'm had never said what he wanted.
"And now," she added reproachfully, "I've told you that we oughtn't to ask for more than one thing apiece, 'cause this is the first time he's ever been to this house, and it doesn't seem polite to ask for so much from a stranger."
Will'm defended himself, his chin tilted at an angle that should have been a warning to one who could read such danger signals.
"I only asked for one thing for me and one for you."
"Yes, but don't you see, I had already asked for something for each of us, so that makes two things apiece," was the almost tearful answer.
"Well, I aren't to blame," persisted Will'm, "you didn't tell me what you'd done."
"But you ought to have waited and asked me before you sent it," insisted Libby.
"I oughtn't!"
"You ought, I say!" This with a stamp of her foot for emphasis.
"I oughtn't, Miss Smarty!" This time a saucy little tongue thrust itself out at her from Will'm's mouth, and his face was screwed into the ugliest twist he could make.
Again he had the shock of a great surprise, when Libby did not answer with a worse face. Instead she lifted her head a little, and said in a voice almost honey-sweet, but so loud that it seemed intended for other ears than Will'm's, "Very well, have your own way, brother, but Santa Claus knows that I didn't want to be greedy and ask for two things!"
William answered in what was fairly a shout, "An' he knows that I didn't, neether!"
The shout was followed by a whisper: "Say, Libby, do you s'pose he heard that?"
Libby's answer was a convincing nod.
CHAPTER III
AFTER spending several days wondering how she could best break the news to the children that their father was going to take them away, Mrs. Neal decided that she would wait until the last possible moment. Then she would tell them that their father had a Christmas present for them, nicer than anything he had ever given them before. It was something that couldn't be sent to them, so he wanted them to go all the way on the cars to his new home, to see it. Then after they had guessed everything they could think of, and were fairly hopping up and down with impatient curiosity, she'd tell them what it was: a new mother!
She decided not to tell them that they were never coming back to the Junction to live. It would be better for them to think of this return to their father as just a visit until they were used to their new surroundings. It would make it easier for all concerned if they could be started off happy and pleasantly expectant. Then if Molly had grown up to be as nice a woman as she had been a young girl, she could safely trust the rest to her. The children would soon be loving her so much that they wouldn't want to come back.
But Mrs. Neal had not taken into account that her news was no longer a secret. Told to one or two friends in confidence, it had passed from lip to lip and had been discussed in so many homes, that half the children at the Junction knew that poor little Libby and Will'm Branfield were to have a stepmother, before they knew it themselves. Maudie Peters told Libby on their way home from school one day, and told it in such a tone that she made Libby feel that having a stepmother was about the worst calamity that could befall one. Libby denied it stoutly.
"But you are!" Maudie insisted. "I heard mama and Aunt Louisa talking about it. They said they certainly felt sorry for you, and mama said that she hoped and prayed that her children would be spared such a fate, because stepmothers are always unkind."
Libby flew home with her tearful question, positive that Grandma Neal would say that Maudie was mistaken, but with a scared, shaky feeling in her knees, because Maudie had been so calmly and provokingly sure. Grandma Neal could deny only a part of Maudie's story.
"I'd like to spank that meddlesome Peters child!" she exclaimed indignantly. "Here I've been keeping it as a grand surprise for you that your father is going to give you a new mother for Christmas, and thinking what a fine time you'd have going on the cars to see them, and now Maudie has to go and tattle, and tell it in such an ugly way that she makes it seem like something bad, instead of the nicest thing that could happen to you. Listen, Libby!"
For Libby, at this confirmation of Maudie's tale, instead of the denial which she hoped for, had crooked her arm over her face, and was crying out loud into her little brown gingham sleeve, as if her heart would break. Mrs. Neal sat down and drew the sobbing child into her lap.
"Listen, Libby!" she said again. "This lady that your father has married, used to live here at the Junction when she was a little girl no bigger than you. Her name was Molly Blair, and she looked something like you – had the same color hair, and wore it in two little plaits just as you do. Everybody liked her. She was so gentle and kind she wouldn't have done anything to hurt any one's feelings any more than a little white kitten would. Your father was a boy then, and he lived here, and they went to school together and played together just as you and Walter Gray do. He's known her all her life, and he knew very well when he asked her to take the place of a mother to his little children that she'd be dear and good to you. Do you think that you could change so in growing up that you could be unkind to any little child that was put in your care?"
"No – o!" sobbed Libby.
"And neither could she!" was the emphatic answer. "You can just tell Maudie Peters that she doesn't know what she is talking about."
Libby repeated the message next day, emphatically and defiantly, with her chin in the air. That talk with Grandma Neal and another longer one which followed at bedtime, helped her to see things in their right light. Besides, several things which Grandma Neal told her made a visit to her father seem quite desirable. It would be fine to be in a city where there is something interesting to see every minute. She knew from other sources that in a city you might expect a hand-organ and a monkey to come down the street almost any day. And it would be grand to live in a house like the one they were going to, with an up-stairs to it, and a piano in the parlor.
But despite Mrs. Neal's efforts to set matters straight, the poison of Maudie's suggestion had done its work. Will'm had been in the room when Libby came home with her question, and the wild way she broke out crying made him feel that something awful was going to happen to them. He had never heard of a stepmother before. By some queer association of words his baby brain confused it with a step-ladder. There was such a ladder in the shop with a broken hinge. He was always being warned not to climb up on it. It might fall over with him and hurt him dreadfully. Even when everything had been explained to him, and he agreed that it would be lovely to take that long ride on the Pullman to see poor father, who was so lonely without his little boy, the poison of Maudie's suggestion still stayed with him. Something, he didn't know exactly what, but something was going to fall with him and hurt him dreadfully if he didn't look out.
It's strange how much there is to learn about persons after you once begin to hear of them. It had been that way about Santa Claus. They had scarcely known his name, and then all of a sudden they heard so much, that instead of being a complete stranger he was a part of everything they said and did and thought. Now they were learning just as fast about stepmothers. Grandma and Uncle Neal and Miss Sally told them a great deal; all good things. And it was surprising how much else they had learned that wasn't good, just by the wag of somebody's head, or a shrug of the shoulders or the pitying way some of the customers spoke to them.
When Libby came crying home from school the second time, because one of the boys called her Cinderella, and told her she would have to sit in the ashes and wear rags, and another one said no, she'd be like Snow-white, and have to eat poisoned apple, Grandma Neal was so indignant that she sent after Libby's books, saying that she would not be back at school any more.
Next day, Libby told Will'm the rest of what the boys had said to her. "All the stepmothers in stories are cruel like Cinderella's and Snow-white's, and sometimes they are cruel. They are always cruel when they have a tusk." Susie Peters told her what a tusk is, and showed her a picture of a cruel hag that had one. "It's an awful long ugly tooth that sticks away out of the side of your mouth like a pig's."
It was a puzzle for both Libby and Will'm to know whom to believe. They had sided with Maudie and the others in their faith in Santa Claus. How could they tell but that Grandma and Uncle Neal might be mistaken about their belief in stepmothers too?
Fortunately there were not many days in which to worry over the problem, and the few that lay between the time of Libby's leaving school and their going away, were filled with preparations for the journey. Of course Libby and Will'm had little part in that, except to collect the few toys they owned, and lay them beside the trunk which had been brought down from the attic to the sitting-room.
Libby had a grand washing of doll clothes one morning, and while she was hanging out the tiny garments on a string, stretched from one chair-back to another, Will'm proceeded to give his old Teddy Bear a bath in the suds which she had left in the basin. Plush does not take kindly to soap-suds, no matter how much it needs it. It would have been far better for poor Teddy to have started on his travels dirty, than to have become the pitiable, bedraggled-looking object that Libby snatched from the basin some time later, where Will'm put him to soak. It seemed as if the soggy cotton body never would dry sufficiently to be packed in the trunk, and Will'm would not hear to its being left behind, although it looked so dreadful that he didn't like to touch it. So it hung by a cord around its neck in front of the fire for two whole days, and everybody who passed it gave the cord a twist, so that it was kept turning like a roast on a spit.
There were more errands than usual to keep the children busy, and more ways in which they could help. As Christmas drew nearer and nearer somebody was needed in the shop every minute, and Mrs. Neal had her hands full with the extra work of looking over their clothes and putting every garment in order. Besides there was all the holiday baking to fill the shelves in the shop as well as in her own pantry.
So the children were called upon to set the table and help wipe the dishes. They dusted the furniture within their reach and fed the cat. They brought in chips from the woodhouse and shelled corn by the basketful for the old gray hens. And every day they carried the eggs very slowly and carefully from the nests to the pantry and put them one by one into the box of bran on the shelf. Then several mornings, all specially scrubbed and clean-aproned for the performance, they knelt on chairs by the kitchen table, and cut out rows and rows of little Christmas cakes, from the sheets of smoothly rolled dough on the floury cake boards. There were hearts and stars and cats and birds and all sorts of queer animals. Then after the baking there were delightful times when they hung breathlessly over the table, watching while scallops of pink or white icing were zigzagged around the stars and hearts, and pink eyes were put on the beasts and birds. Then of course the bowls which held the candied icing always had to be scraped clean by busy little fingers that went from bowl to mouth and back again, almost as fast as a kitten could lap with its pink tongue.
Oh, those last days in the old kitchen and sitting-room behind the shop were the best days of all, and it was good that Will'm and Libby were kept so busy every minute that they had no time to realize that they were last days, and that they were rapidly coming to an end. It was not until the last night that Will'm seemed to comprehend that they were really going away the next day.
He had been very busy helping get supper, for it was the kind that he specially liked. Uncle Neal had brought in a rabbit all ready skinned and dressed, which he had trapped that afternoon, and Will'm had gone around the room for nearly an hour, sniffing hungrily while it sputtered and browned in the skillet, smelling more tempting and delectable every minute. And he had watched while Grandma Neal lifted each crisp, brown piece up on a fork, and laid it on the hot waiting platter, and then stirred into the skillet the things that go to the making of a delicious cream gravy.
Suddenly in the ecstasy of anticipation Will'm was moved to throw his arms around Grandma Neal's skirts, gathering them in about her knees in such a violent hug that he almost upset her.
"Oh, rabbit dravy!" he exclaimed in a tone of such rapture that everybody laughed. Uncle Neal, who had already taken his place at the table, and was waiting too, with his chair tipped back on its hind legs, reached forward and gave Will'm's cheek a playful pinch.
"It's easy to tell what you think is the best tasting thing in the world," he said teasingly. "Just the smell of it puts the smile on your face that won't wear off."
Always when his favorite dish was on the table, Will'm passed his plate back several times for more. To-night after the fourth ladleful Uncle Neal hesitated. "Haven't you had about all that's good for you, kiddo?" he asked. "Remember you're going away in the morning, and you don't want to make yourself sick when you're starting off with just Libby to look after you."
There was no answer for a second. Then Will'm couldn't climb out of his chair fast enough to hide the trembling of his mouth and the gathering of unmanly tears. He cast himself across Mrs. Neal's lap, screaming, "I aren't going away! I won't leave my Dranma, and I won't go where there'll never be any more good rabbit dravy!"
They quieted him after awhile, and comforted him with promises of the time when he should come back and be their little boy again, but he did not romp around as usual when he started to bed. He realized that when he came again maybe the little crib-bed would be too small to hold him, and things would never be the same again.
Libby was quiet and inwardly tearful for another reason. They were to leave the very day on the night of which people hung up their stockings. Would Santa Claus know of their going and follow them? Will'm would be getting what he asked for, a ride on the Pullman, but how was she to get her gold ring? She lay awake quite a long while, worrying about it, but finally decided that she had been so good, so very good, that Santa would find some way to keep his part of the bargain. She hadn't even fussed and rebelled about going back to her father as Maudie had advised her to do, and she had helped to persuade Will'm to accept quietly what couldn't be helped.