A Little Book for Christmas by Cyrus Townsend Brady

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One man at least was keenly conscious of one little soul who, with
absolutely nothing to warrant the expectation, nothing reasonable on
which to base joyous anticipation, had gone to bed thinking of Santa
Claus and hoping that, amidst equally deserving hundreds of thousands of
obscure children, this little mite in her cold, cheerless garret might
not be overlooked by the generous dispenser of joy. With the sublime
trust of childhood she had insisted upon hanging up her ragged stocking.
Santa Claus would have to be very careful indeed lest things should drop
through and clatter upon the floor. Her heart had beaten, too, although
she descended no stair in the great house. She, too, lay wakeful,
uneasy, watching, sleeping, drowsing, hoping. We may have some doubts
about the eternal springing of hope in the human breast save in the case
of childhood--thank God it is always verdant there!

III

Now few people get so low that they do not love somebody, and I dare say
that no people get so low that somebody does not love them.

"Crackerjack," so called because of his super-excellence in his chosen
profession, was, or had been, a burglar and thief; a very ancient and
highly placed calling indeed. You doubtless remember that two thieves
comprised the sole companions and attendants of the Greatest King upon
the most famous throne in history. His sole court at the culmination of
His career. "Crackerjack" was no exception to the general rule about
loving and being beloved set forth above.

He loved the little lady whose tattered stocking swung in the breeze
from the cracked window. Also he loved the wretched woman who with
himself shared the honours of parentage to the poor but hopeful mite
who was also dreaming of Christmas and the morning. And his love
inspired him to action. Singular into what devious courses, utterly
unjustifiable, even so exalted and holy an emotion may lead fallible
man. Love--burglary! They do not belong naturally in association, yet
slip cold, need, and hunger in between and we may have explanation even
if there be no justification. Oh, Love, how many crimes are committed in
thy name!

"Crackerjack" would hardly have chosen Christmas eve for a thieving
expedition if there had been any other recourse. Unfortunately there was
none. The burglar's profession, so far as he had practised it, was
undergoing a timely eclipse. Time was when it had been lucrative, its
rewards great. Then the law, which is no respecter of professions of
that kind, had got him. "Crackerjack" had but recently returned from a
protracted sojourn at an institution arranged by the State in its
paternalism for the reception and harbouring of such as he. The pitiful
dole with which the discharged prisoner had been unloaded upon a world
which had no welcome for him had been soon spent; even the hideous
prison-made clothes had been pawned, and some rags, which were yet the
rags of a free man, which had been preserved through the long period of
separation by his wife, gave him a poor shelter from the winter's cold.

That wife had been faithful to him. She had done the best she could for
herself and baby during the five years of the absence of the bread
winner, or in his case the bread taker would be the better phrase. She
had eagerly waited the hour of his release; her joy had been soon turned
to bitterness. The fact that he had been in prison had shut every door
against him and even closed the few that had been open to her. The
three pieces of human flotsam had been driven by the wind of adversity
and tossed. They knew not where to turn when jettisoned by society.

Came Christmas Eve. They had no money and no food and no fire. Stop! The
fire of love burned in the woman's heart, the fire of hate in the man's.
Prison life usually completes the education in shame of the unfortunate
men who are thrust there. This was before the days in which humane men
interested themselves in prisons and prisoners and strove to awaken the
world to its responsibilities to, as well as the possibilities of, the
convict.

But "Crackerjack" was a man of unusual character. Poverty, remorse,
drink, all the things that go to wreck men by forcing them into evil
courses had laid him low, and because he was a man originally of
education and ability, he had shone as a criminal. The same force of
character which made him super-burglar could change him from criminal to
man if by chance they could be enlisted in the endeavour.

He had involved the wife he had married in his misfortunes. She had been
a good woman, weaker than he, yet she stuck to him. God chose the weak
thing to rejuvenate the strong. In the prison he had enjoyed abundant
leisure for reflection. After he learned of the birth of his daughter he
determined to do differently when he was freed. Many men determine,
especially in the case of an ex-convict, but society usually determines
better--no, not better, but more strongly. Society had different ideas.
It was Brahministic in its religion. Caste? Yes, once a criminal always
a criminal.

"Old girl," said the broken man, "it's no use. I've tried to be decent
for your sake and the kid's, but it can't be done. I can't get honest
work. They've put the mark of Cain on me. They can take the
consequences. The kid's got to have some Christmas; you've got to have
food and drink and clothes and fire. God, how cold it is! I'll go out
and get some."

"Isn't there something else we can pawn?"

"Nothing."

"Isn't there any work?"

"Work?" laughed the man bitterly. "I've tramped the city over seeking
it, and you, too. Now, I'm going to get money--elsewhere."

"Where?"

"Where it's to be had."

"Oh, Jack, think."

"If I thought, I'd kill you and the kid and myself."

"Perhaps that would be better," said the woman simply. "There doesn't
seem to be any place left for us."

"We haven't come to that yet," said the man. "Society owes me a living
and, by God, it's got to pay it to me."

It was an oft-repeated, widely held assertion, whether fallacious or not
each may determine for himself.

"I'm afraid," said the woman.

"You needn't be; nothing can be worse than this hell."

He kissed her fiercely. Albeit she was thin and haggard she was
beautiful to him. Then he bent over his little girl. He had not yet had
sufficient time since his release to get very well acquainted with her.
She had been born while he was in prison, but it had not taken any time
at all for him to learn to love her. He stared at her a moment. He bent
to kiss her and then stopped. He might awaken her. It is always best for
the children of the very poor to sleep. He who sleeps dines, runs the
Spanish proverb. He turned and kissed the little ragged stockings
instead, and then he went out. He was going to play--was it Santa Claus,
indeed?

IV

The strange, illogical, ironical god of chance, or was it Providence
acting through some careless maid, had left an area window unlocked in
the biggest and newest house on the avenue. Any house would have been
easy for "Crackerjack" if he had possessed the open sesame of his kit of
burglar's tools, but he had not had a jimmy in his hand since he was
caught with one and sent to Sing Sing. He had examined house after
house, trusting to luck as he wandered on, and, lo! fortune favoured
him.

The clock in a nearby church struck the hour of two. The areaway was
dark. No one was abroad. He plunged down the steps, opened the window
and disappeared. No man could move more noiselessly than he. In the
still night he knew how the slightest sounds are magnified. He had made
none as he groped his way through the back of the house, arriving at
last in a room which he judged to be the library. Then, after listening
and hearing nothing, he ventured to turn the button of a side light in a
far corner of the room.

He was in a large apartment, beautifully furnished. Books and pictures
abounded, but these did not interest him, although if he had made
further examination he might have found things worthy of his attention
even there. It so happened that the light bracket to which he had
blundered, or had been led, was immediately over a large wall safe.
Evidently it had been placed there for the purpose of illuminating the
safe door. His eyes told him that instantly. This was greater fortune
than he expected. A wall safe in a house like that must contain things
of value.

Marking the position of the combination knob, he turned out the light
and waited again. The quiet of the night continued unbroken. A swift
inspection convinced him that the lock was only an ordinary combination.
With proper--or improper--tools he could have opened it easily. Even
without tools, such were his delicately trained ear and his wonderfully
trained fingers that he thought he could feel and hear the combination.
He knelt down by the knob and began to turn it slowly, listening and
feeling for the fall of the tumblers. Several times he almost got it,
only to fail at the end, but by repeated trials and unexampled patience,
his heart beating like a trip-hammer the while, he finally mastered the
combination and opened the safe door.

In his excitement when he felt the door move he swung it outward
sharply. It had not been used for some time evidently and the hinges
creaked. He checked the door and listened again. Was he to be balked
after so much success? He was greatly relieved at the absence of sound.
It was quite dark in the room. He could see nothing but the safe. He
reached his hand in and discovered it was filled with bulky articles
covered with some kind of cloth, silver evidently.

He decided that he must have a look and again he switched on the light.
Yes, his surmise had been correct. The safe was filled with silver.
There was a small steel drawer in the middle of it. He had a broad
bladed jack-knife in his pocket and at the risk of snapping the blade he
forced the lock and drew out the drawer. It was filled with papers. He
lifted the first one and stood staring at it in astonishment, for it
was an envelope which bore his name, written by a hand which had long
since mouldered away in the dust of a grave.

V

Before he could open the envelope, there broke on his ear a still small
voice, not that of conscience, not that of God; the voice of a
child--but does not God speak perhaps as often through the lips of
childhood as in any other way--and conscience, too?

"Are you Santa Claus?" the voice whispered in his ear.

"Crackerjack" dropped the paper and turned like a flash, knife upraised
in his clenched hand, to confront a very little girl and a still smaller
boy staring at him in open-eyed astonishment, an astonishment which was
without any vestige of alarm. He looked down at the two and they looked
up at him, equal bewilderment on both sides.

"I sought dat Santy Claus tame down de chimney," said the younger of the
twain, whose pajamas bespoke the nascent man.

"In all the books he has a long white beard. Where's yours?" asked the
coming woman.

This innocent question no less than the unaffected simplicity and
sincerity of the questioner overpowered "Crackerjack." He sank back into
a convenient chair and stared at the imperturbable pair. There was a
strange and wonderful likeness in the sweet-faced golden-haired little
girl before him to the worn, haggard, and ill-clad little girl who lay
shivering in the mean bed in the upper room where God was not--or so he
fancied.

"You're a little girl, aren't you?" he whispered.

No voice had been or was raised above a whisper. It was a witching hour
and its spell was upon them all.

"Yes."

"What is your name?"

"Helen."

Now Helen had been "Crackerjack's" mother's name and it was the name of
his own little girl, and although everybody else called her Nell, to him
she was always Helen.

"And my name's John," volunteered the other child.

"John!" That was extraordinary!

"What's your other name?"

"John William."

The man stared again. Could this be coincidence merely? John was his own
name and William that of his brother.

"I mean what is your last name?"

"Carstairs," answered the little girl. "Now you tell us who you are. You
aren't Santa Claus, are you? I don't hear any reindeers outside, or
bells, and you haven't any pack, and you're not by the fireplace where
our stockings are."

[Illustration: "I sought dat Santy Claus tame down de chimney," said the
younger of the twain.]

"No," said the man, "I'm not exactly Santa Claus, I'm his friend--I--"

What should he say to these children? In his bewilderment for the moment
he actually forgot the letter which he still held tightly in his hand.

"Dat's muvver's safe," continued the little boy. "She keeps lots o'
things in it. It's all hers but dat drawer. Dat's papa's and--"

"I think I hear some one on the stairs," broke in the little girl
suddenly in great excitement. "Maybe that's Santa Claus."

"Perhaps it is," said the man, who had also heard. "You wait and watch
for him. I'll go outside and attend to his reindeer."

He made a movement to withdraw, but the girl caught him tightly by the
hand.

"If you are his friend," she said, "you can introduce us. You know our
names and--"

The golden opportunity was gone.

"Don't say a word," whispered the man quickly. "We'll surprise him. Be
very still."

He reached his hand up and turned out the light. He half hoped he might
be mistaken, or that in the darkness they would not be seen, but no.
They all heard the footsteps on the stair. They came down slowly, and it
was evident that whoever was approaching was using every precaution not
to be heard. "Crackerjack" was in a frightful situation. He did not know
whether to jerk himself away from the two children, for the boy had
clasped him around the leg and the girl still held his hand, or whether
to wait.

The power of decision suddenly left him, for the steps stopped before
the door. There was a little click as a hand pressed a button on the
wall and the whole room was flooded with light from the great
electrolier in the centre. Well, the game was up. "Crackerjack" had been
crouching low with the children. He rose to his feet and looked
straightly enough into the barrel of a pistol held by a tall, severe
looking man in a rich silk dressing robe, who confronted him in the
doorway. Two words broke from the lips of the two men, the same words
that had fallen from their lips when they met ten years before.

"John!" cried the elder man, laying the weapon on a nearby table.

"Will!" answered "Crackerjack" in the same breath.

As if to mark the eternal difference as before, the one was clothed in
habiliments of wealth and luxury, the other in the rags and tatters of
poverty and shame.

"Why, that isn't Santa Claus," instantly burst out the little girl,
"that's papa."

"Dis is Santy Claus's friend, papa," said the little boy. "We were doin'
to su'prise him. He said be very still and we minded."

"So this is what you have come to, John," said the elder man, but there
was an unwonted gentleness in his voice.

"I swear to God I didn't know it was your house. I just came in here
because the window was open."

The other pointed to the safe.

"But you were--"

"Of course I was. You don't suppose I wandered in for fun, do you? I've
got a little girl of my own, and her name's Helen, too; our mother's
name."

The other brother nodded.

"She's hungry and cold and there's no Christmas for her or her mother."

"Oh, Santy has been here already," cried Master John Williams, running
toward the great fireplace, having just that moment discovered the
bulging stockings and piles of gifts. His sister made a move in the same
direction, for at the other corner hung her stocking and beneath it her
pile, but the man's hand unconsciously tightened upon her hand and she
stopped.

"I'll stay with you," she said, after a moment of hesitation. "Tell me
more about your Helen."

"There's nothing to tell." He released her hand roughly. "You musn't
touch me," he added harshly. "Go."

"You needn't go, my dear," said her father quickly. "Indeed, I think,
perhaps--"

"Is your Helen very poor?" quietly asked the little girl, possessing
herself of his hand again, "because if she is she can have"--she looked
over at the pile of toys--"Well, I'll see. I'll give her lots of things,
and--"

"What's this?" broke out the younger man harshly, extending his hand
with the letter in it toward the other.

"It is a letter to you from our father."

"And you kept it from me?" cried the other.

"Read it," said William Carstairs.

With trembling hands "Crackerjack" tore it open. It was a message of
love and forgiveness penned by a dying hand.

"If I had had this then I might have been a different man," said the
poor wretch.

"There is another paper under it, or there should be, in the same
drawer," went on William Carstairs, imperturbably. "Perhaps you would
better read that."

John Carstairs needed no second invitation. He turned to the open
drawer and took out the next paper. It was a copy of a will. The farm
and business had been left to William, but one half of it was to be held
in trust for his brother. The man read it and then he crushed the paper
in his hand.

"And that, too, might have saved me. My God!" he cried, "I've been a
drunken blackguard. I've gone down to the very depths. I have been in
State's prison. I was, I am, a thief, but I never would have withheld a
dying man's forgiveness from his son. I never would have kept a poor
wretch who was crazy with shame and who drank himself into crime out of
his share of the property."

Animated by a certain fell purpose, he leaped across the room and seized
the pistol.

"Yes, and I have you now!" he cried. "I'll make you pay."

He levelled the weapon at his brother with a steady hand.

"What are you doin' to do wif that pistol?" said young John William,
curiously looking up from his stocking, while Helen cried out. The
little woman acted the better part. With rare intuition she came quickly
and took the left hand of the man and patted it gently. For one thing,
her father was not afraid, and that reassured her. John Carstairs threw
the pistol down again. William Carstairs had never moved.

"Now," he said, "let me explain."

"Can you explain away this?"

"I can. Father's will was not opened until the day after you left. As
God is my judge I did not know he had written to you. I did not know he
had left anything to you. I left no stone unturned in an endeavour to
find you. I employed the best detectives in the land, but we found no
trace of you whatever. Why, John, I have only been sorry once that I
let you go that night, that I spoke those words to you, and that has
been all the time."

"And where does this come from?" said the man, flinging his arm up and
confronting the magnificent room.

"It came from the old farm. There was oil on it and I sold it for a
great price. I was happily married. I came here and have been successful
in business. Half of it all is yours."

"I won't take it."

"John," said William Carstairs, "I offered you money once and you struck
it out of my hand. You remember?"

"Yes."

"What I am offering you now is your own. You can't strike it out of my
hand. It is not mine, but yours."

"I won't have it," protested the man. "It's too late. You don't know
what I've been, a common thief. 'Crackerjack' is my name. Every
policeman and detective in New York knows me."

"But you've got a little Helen, too, haven't you?" interposed the little
girl with wisdom and tact beyond her years.

"Yes."

"And you said she was very poor and had no Christmas."

"Yes."

"For her sake, John," said William Carstairs. "Indeed you must not think
you have been punished alone. I have been punished, too. I'll help you
begin again. Here"--he stepped closer to his brother--"is my hand."

The other stared at it uncomprehendingly.

"There is nothing in it now but affection. Won't you take it?"

Slowly John Carstairs lifted his hand. His palm met that of his elder
brother. He was so hungry and so weak and so overcome that he swayed a
little. His head bowed, his body shook and the elder brother put his arm
around him and drew him close.

Into the room came William Carstairs' wife. She, too, had at last been
aroused by the conversation, and, missing her husband, she had thrown a
wrapper about her and had come down to seek him.

"We tame down to find Santy Claus," burst out young John William, at the
sight of her, "and he's been here, look muvver."

Yes, Santa Claus had indeed been there. The boy spoke better than he
knew.

"And this," said little Helen eagerly, pointing proudly to her new
acquaintance, "is a friend of his, and he knows papa and he's got a
little Helen and we're going to give her a Merry Christmas."

William Carstairs had no secrets from his wife. With a flash of womanly
intuition, although she could not understand how he came to be there,
she divined who this strange guest was who looked a pale, weak picture
of her strong and splendid husband, and yet she must have final
assurance.

"Who is this gentleman, William?" she asked quietly, and John Carstairs
was forever grateful to her for her word that night.

"This," said William Carstairs, "is my father's son, my brother, who was
dead and is alive again, and was lost and is found."

And so, as it began with the beginning, this story ends with the ending
of the best and most famous of all the stories that were ever told.

[Illustration]

ON CHRISTMAS GIVING

[Illustration]

_Being a Word of Much Needed Advice_

Christmas is the birthday of our Lord, upon which we celebrate God's
ineffable gift of Himself to His children. No human soul has ever been
able to realize the full significance of that gift, no heart has ever
been glad enough to contain the joy of it, and no mind has ever been
wise enough to express it. Nevertheless we powerfully appreciate the
blessing and would fain convey it fitly. Therefore to commemorate that
great gift the custom of exchanging tokens of love and remembrance has
grown until it has become well nigh universal. This is a day in which we
ourselves crave, as never at any other time, happiness and peace for
those we love and that ought to include everybody, for with the angelic
message in our ears it should be impossible to hate any one on Christmas
day however we may feel before or after.

But despite the best of wills almost inevitably Christmas in many
instances has created a burdensome demand. Perhaps by the method of
exclusion we shall find out what Christmas should be. It is not a time
for extravagance, for ostentation, for vulgar display, it is possible to
purchase pleasure for someone else at too high a price to ourselves. To
paraphrase Polonius, "Costly thy gift as thy purse can buy, rich but not
expressed in fancy, for the gift oft proclaims the man." In making
presents observe three principal facts; the length of your purse, the
character of your friend, and the universal rule of good taste. Do not
plunge into extravagance from which you will scarcely recover except in
months of nervous strain and desperate financial struggle. On the other
hand do not be mean and niggardly in your gifts. Oh, not that; avoid
selfishness at Christmas, if at no other time. Rather no gift at all
than a grudging one. Let your offerings represent yourselves and your
affections. Indeed if they do not represent you, they are not gifts at
all. "The gift without the giver is bare."

And above all banish from your mind the principle of reciprocity. The
_lex talionis_ has no place in Christmas giving. Do not think or feel
that you must give to someone because someone gave to you. There is no
barter about it. You give because you love and without a thought of
return. Credit others with the same feeling and be governed thereby. I
know one upon whose Christmas list there are over one hundred and fifty
people, rich and poor, high and low, able and not able. That man would
be dismayed beyond measure if everyone of those people felt obliged to
make a return for the Christmas remembrances he so gladly sends them.

In giving remember after all the cardinal principle of the day. Let your
gift be an expression of your kindly remembrance, your gentle
consideration, your joyful spirit, your spontaneous gratitude, your
abiding desire for peace and goodwill toward men. Hunt up somebody who
needs and who without you may lack and suffer heart hunger, loneliness,
and disappointment.

Nor is Christmas a time for gluttonous eating and drinking. To gorge
one's self with quantities of rich and indigestible food is not the
noblest method of commemorating the day. The rules and laws of digestion
are not abrogated upon the Holy day. These are material cautions, the
day has a spiritual significance of which material manifestations are,
or ought to be, outward and visible expressions only.

Christmas is one of the great days of obligation in the Church year,
then as at Easter if at no other time, Christians should gather around
the table of the Lord, kneeling before God's altar in the ministering of
that Holy Communion which unites them with the past, the present, and
the future--the communion of the saints of God's Holy Church with His
Beloved Son. Then and thus in body, soul, and spirit we do truly
participate in the privilege and blessing of the Incarnation, then and
there we receive that strength which enables everyone of us to become
factors in the great extension of that marvellous occurrence throughout
the ages and throughout the world.

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