* * *

  Mrs. Fountain, springing up: "I knew it! I knew that it was this Christmas giving that was making you morbid again. Can't you shake it off and be cheerful—like me? I'm sure I have to bear twice as much of it as you have. I've been shopping the whole week, and you've been just this one afternoon." She begins to catch her breath, and fails in searching for her handkerchief in the folds of her dress under the bath-robe.

  * * *

  Fountain, offering his handkerchief: "Take mine."

  * * *

  Mrs. Fountain, catching it from him, and hiding her face in it on the table: "You ought to help me bear up, and instead of that you fling yourself on my sympathies and break me down." Lifting her face: "And if it was all a fake, as you say, and an illusion, what would you do, what would you give people in place of it?"

  * * *

  Fountain: "I don't know."

  * * *

  Mrs. Fountain: "What would you have in place of Christmas itself?"

  * * *

  Fountain: "I don't know."

  * * *

  Mrs. Fountain: "Well, then, I wouldn't set myself up to preach down everything—in a blue bath-gown. You've no idea how ridiculous you are."

  * * *

  Fountain: "Oh, yes, I have. I can see you. You look like one of those blue nuns in Rome. But I don't remember any lace on them."

  * * *

  Mrs. Fountain: "Well, you don't look like a blue monk, you needn't flatter yourself, for there are none. You look like— What are you thinking about?"

  * * *

  Fountain: "Oh, nothing. What do you suppose is in all these packages here? Useful things, that we need, that we must have? You know without looking that it's the superfluity of naughtiness in one form or other. And the givers of these gifts, they had to give them, just as we've had to give dozens of gifts ourselves. We ought to have put on our cards, 'With the season's bitterest grudges,' 'In hopes of a return,' 'With a hopeless sense of the folly,' 'To pay a hateful debt,' 'With impotent rage and despair.'"

  * * *

  Mrs. Fountain: "I don't deny it, Clarence. You're perfectly right; I almost wish we had put it. How it would have made them hop! But they'd have known it was just the way they felt themselves."

  * * *

  Fountain, going on thoughtfully: "It's the cap-sheaf of the social barbarism we live in, the hideous hypocrisy. It's no use to put it on religion. The Jews keep Christmas, too, and we know what they think of Christianity as a belief. No, we've got to go further back, to the Pagan Saturnalia— Well, I renounce the whole affair, here and now. I'm going to spend the rest of the night bundling these things up, and to-morrow I'm going to spend the day in a taxi, going round and giving them back to the fools that sent them."

  * * *

  Mrs. Fountain: "And I'm going with you. I hate it as much as you do— Come in, Maggie!"

  Chapter 11

  MAGGIE, MRS. FOUNTAIN, FOUNTAIN

  * * *

  Maggie: "Something the elevator-boy says he forgot. It came along with the last one."

  * * *

  Mrs. Fountain, taking a bundle from her: "If this is another bath-robe, Clarence! It is, as I live. Now if it is a woman sending it—" She picks up a card which falls out of the robe as she unfolds it. "'Love the Giver,' indeed! Now, Clarence, I insist, I demand—"

  * * *

  Fountain: "Hold on, hold on, my dear. The last bath-robe that came from a woman was for you."

  * * *

  Mrs. Fountain: "So it was. I don't know what I was thinking about; and I do beg your par— But this is a man's bath-robe!"

  * * *

  Fountain, taking the card which she mechanically stretches out to him: "And a man sends it—old Fellows. Can't you read print? Ambrose J. Fellows, and a message in writing: 'It was a toss-up between this and a cigar-case, and the bath-robe won. Hope you haven't got any other thoughtful friends.'"

  * * *

  Mrs. Fountain: "Oh, very brilliant, giving me a start like this! I shall let Mr. Fellows know— What is it, Maggie? Open the door, please."

  * * *

  Maggie, opening: "It's just a District Messenger."

  * * *

  Fountain, ironically: "Oh, only a District Messenger." He signs the messenger's slip, while his wife receives from Maggie a bundle which she regards with suspicion.

  Chapter 12

  MRS. FOUNTAIN, FOUNTAIN

  * * *

  Mrs. Fountain: "'From Uncle Philip for Clarence.' Well, Uncle Philip, if you have sent Clarence— Clarence!" breaking into a whimper: "It is, it is! It's another."

  * * *

  Fountain: "Well, that only makes the seventh, and just enough for every day in the week. It's quite my ideal. Now, if there's nothing about a cigar-case— Hello!" He feels in the pocket of the robe and brings out a cigar-case, from which a slip of paper falls: "'Couldn't make up my mind [Pg 345] between them, so send both. Uncle Phil.' Well, this is the last stroke of Christmas insanity."

  * * *

  Mrs. Fountain: "His brain simply reeled under it, and gave way. It shows what Christmas really comes to with a man of strong intellect like Uncle Phil."

  * * *

  Fountain, opening the case: "Oh, I don't know! He's put some cigars in here—in a lucid interval, probably. There's hope yet."

  * * *

  Mrs. Fountain, in despair: "No, Clarence, there's no hope. Don't flatter yourself. The only way is to bundle back all their presents and never, never, never give or receive another one. Come! Let's begin tying them up at once; it will take us the rest of the night." A knock at the door. "Come, Maggie."

  Chapter 13

  JIM AND SUSY, MRS. FOUNTAIN, FOUNTAIN

  * * *

  Jim and Susy, pushing in: "We can't sleep, mother. May we have a pillow fight to keep us amused till we're drowsy?"

  * * *

  Mrs. Fountain, desolately: "Yes, go and have your pillow fight. It doesn't matter now. We're sending the presents all back, anyway." She begins frantically wrapping some of the things up.

  * * *

  Susy: "Oh, father, are you sending them back?"

  * * *

  Jim: "She's just making believe. Isn't she, father?"

  * * *

  Fountain: "Well, I'm not so sure of that. If she doesn't do it, I will."

  * * *

  Mrs. Fountain, desisting: "Will you go right back to bed?"

  * * *

  Jim and Susy: "Yes, we will."

  * * *

  Mrs. Fountain: "And to sleep, instantly?"

  * * *

  Jim and Susy, in succession: "We won't keep awake a minute longer."

  * * *

  Mrs. Fountain: "Very well, then, we'll see. Now be off with you." As they put their heads together and go out laughing: "And remember, if you come here another single time, back go every one of the presents."

  * * *

  Fountain: "As soon as ever Santa Claus can find a moment for it."

  * * *

  Jim, derisively: "Oh, yes, Santa Claus!"

  * * *

  Susy: "I guess if you wait for Santa Claus to take them back!"

  Chapter 14

  MRS. FOUNTAIN, FOUNTAIN

  * * *

  Mrs. Fountain: "Tiresome little wretches. Of course we can't expect them to keep up the self-deception."

  * * *

  Fountain: "They'll grow to another. When they're men and women they'll pretend that Christmas is delightful, and go round giving people the presents that they've worn their lives out in buying and getting together. And they'll work themselves up into the notion that they are really enjoying it, when they know at the bottom of their souls that they loathe the whole job."

  * * *

  Mrs. Fountain: "There you are with your pessimism again! And I had just begun to feel cheerful about it!"

  * * *

  Fountain: "Since when? Since I proposed sending this rubbish back to the givers with our curse?"

  * * *

  Mrs. Fountain: "No, I was thinking what fun it would be if we could get up a sort of Christmas game, and do it just among relations and intimate friends."

  * * *

  Fountain: "Ah, I wish you luck of it. Then the thing would begin to have some reality, and just as in proportion as people had the worst feelings in giving the presents, their best feeling would be hurt in getting them back."

  * * *

  Mrs. Fountain: "Then why did you ever think of it?"

  * * *

  Fountain: "To keep from going mad. Come, let's go on with this job of sorting the presents, and putting them in the stockings and hanging them up on the tree and laying them round the trunk of it. One thing: it's for the last time. As soon as Christmas week is over, I shall inaugurate an educational campaign against the whole Christmas superstition. It must be extirpated root and branch, and the extirpation must begin in the minds of the children; we old fools are hopeless; we must die in it; but the children can be saved. We must organize and make a house-to-house fight; and I'll begin in our own house. To-morrow, as soon as the children have made themselves thoroughly sick with candy and cake and midday dinner, I will appeal to their reason, and get them to agree to drop it; to sign the Anti-Christmas pledge; to—"

  * * *

  Mrs. Fountain: "Clarence! I have an idea."

  * * *

  Fountain: "Not a bright one?"

  * * *

  Mrs. Fountain: "Yes, a bright one, even if you didn't originate it. Have Christmas confined entirely to children—to the very youngest—to children that believe firmly in Santa Claus."

  * * *

  Fountain: "Oh, hello! Wouldn't that leave Jim and Susy out? I couldn't have them left out."

  * * *

  Mrs. Fountain: "That's true. I didn't think of that. Well, say, to children that either believe or pretend to believe in him. What's that?" She stops at a faint, soft sound on the door. "It's Maggie with her hands so full she's pushing with her elbow. Come in, Maggie, come in. Come in! Don't you hear me? Come in, I say! Oh, it isn't Maggie, of course! It's those worthless, worthless little wretches, again." She runs to the door calling out, "Naughty, naughty, naughty!" as she runs. Then, flinging the door wide, with a final cry of "Naughty, I say!" she discovers a small figure on the threshold, nightgowned to its feet, and looking up with a frightened, wistful face. "Why, Benny!" She stoops down and catches the child in her arms, and presses him tight to her neck, and bends over, covering his head with kisses. "What in the world are you doing here, you poor little lamb? Is mother's darling walking in his sleep? What did you want, my pet? Tell mudda, do! Whisper it in mudda's big ear! Can't you tell mudda? What? Whisper a little louder, love! We're not angry with you, sweetness. Now, try to speak louder. Is that Santa Claus? No, dearest, that's just dadda. Santa Claus hasn't come yet, but he will soon. What? Say it again. Is there any Santa Claus? Why, who else could have brought all these presents? Presents for Benny and Jim and Susy and mudda, and seven bath-gowns for dadda. Isn't that funny? Seven! And one for mudda. What? I can't quite hear you, pet. Are we going to send the presents back? Why, who ever heard of such a thing? Jim said so? And Susy? Well, I will settle with them, when I come to them. You don't want me to? Well, I won't, then, if Benny doesn't want mudda to. I'll just give them a kiss apiece, pop in their big ears. What? You've got something for Santa Claus to give them? What? Where? In your crib? And shall we go and get it? For mudda too? And dadda? Oh, my little angel!" She begins to cry over him, and to kiss him again. "You'll break my heart with your loveliness. He wants to kiss you too, dadda." She puts the boy into his father's arms; then catches him back and runs from the room with him. Fountain resumes the work of filling the long stocking he had begun with; then he takes up a very short sock. He has that in his hand when Mrs. Fountain comes back, wiping her eyes. "He'll go to sleep now, I guess; he was half dreaming when he came in here. I should think, when you saw how Benny believed in it, you'd be ashamed of saying a word against Christmas."

  * * *

  Fountain: "Who's said anything against it? I've just been arguing for it, and trying to convince you that for the sake of little children like Benny it ought to be perpetuated to the end of the world. It began with the childhood of the race, in the rejuvenescence of the spirit."

  * * *

  Mrs. Fountain: "Didn't you say that Christmas began with the pagans? How monstrously you prevaricate!"

  * * *

  Fountain: "That was merely a figure of speech. And besides, since you've been out with Benny, I've been thinking, and I take back everything I've said or thought against Christmas; I didn't really think it. I've been going back in my mind to that first Christmas we had together, and it's cheered me up wonderfully."

  * * *

  Mrs. Fountain, tenderly: "Have you, dearest? I always think of it. If you could have seen Benny, how I left him, just now?"

  * * *

  Fountain: "I shouldn't mind seeing him, and I shouldn't care if I gave a glance at poor old Jim and Susy. I'd like to reassure them about not sending back the presents." He puts his arm round her and presses her toward the door.

  * * *

  Mrs. Fountain: "How sweet you are! And how funny! And good!" She accentuates each sentiment with a kiss. "And don't you suppose I felt sorry for you, making you go round with me the whole afternoon, and then leaving you to take the brunt of arranging the presents? Now I'll tell you: next year, I will do my Christmas shopping in July. It's the only way."

  * * *

  Fountain: "No, there's a better way. As you were saying, they don't have the Christmas things out. The only way is to do our Christmas shopping the day after Christmas; everything will be round still, and dog-cheap. Come, we'll begin day after to-morrow."

  * * *

  Mrs. Fountain: "We will, we will!"

  * * *

  Fountain: "Do you think we will?"

  * * *

  Mrs. Fountain: "Well, we'll say we will." They laugh together, and then he kisses her.

  * * *

  Fountain: "Even if it goes on in the same old way, as long as we have each other—"

  * * *

  Mrs. Fountain: "And the children."

  * * *

  Fountain: "I forgot the children!"

  * * *

  Mrs. Fountain: "Oh, how delightful you are!"

  The Pony Engine and the Pacific Express

  William Dean Howells

  The Pony Engine and the Pacific Express

  Christmas Eve, after the children had hung up their stockings and got all ready for St. Nic, they climbed up on the papa's lap to kiss him good-night, and when they both got their arms round his neck, they said they were not going to bed till he told them a Christmas story. Then he saw that he would have to mind, for they were awfully severe with him, and always made him do exactly what they told him; it was the way they had brought him up. He tried his best to get out of it for a while; but after they had shaken him first this side, and then that side, and pulled him backward and forward till he did not know where he was, he began to think perhaps he had better begin. The first thing he said, after he opened his eyes, and made believe he had been asleep, or something, was, “Well, what did I leave off at?” and that made them just perfectly boiling, for they understood his tricks, and they knew he was trying to pretend that he had told part of the story already; and they said he had not left off anywhere because he had not commenced, and he saw it was no use. So he commenced.

  * * *

  “Once there was a little Pony Engine that used to play round the Fitchburg Depot on the side tracks, and sleep in among the big locomotives in the car-house—”