A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens Part 35

"Do I? Well, take the rest of the message. Tell her that Sam loved her through the whole; that, when he heard she was free, he began to work hard at making a fortune. He has got it; and he is coming to share it with her, if she will let him. Will you tell her this?"

The widow did not answer. She had freed her hand from his, and covered her face with it. By and by she looked up again--he was waiting patiently.

"Well?"

"I will tell her."

He rose from his seat, and walked up and down the room. Then he came back, and leaning on the mantel-piece, stroked the yellow hide of Bose with his slipper.

"Make her quite understand that he wants her for his wife. She may live where she likes and how she likes, only it must be with him."

"I will tell her."

"Say he has grown old, but not cold; that he loves her now perhaps better than he did twenty years ago; that he has been faithful to her all through his life, and that he will be faithful till he dies."

The Californian broke off suddenly. The widow answered still, "I will tell her."

"And what do you think she will say?" he asked, in an altered tone.

"What _can_ she say but _Come_!"

"Hurrah!"

The stranger caught her out of her chair as if she had been a child, and kissed her.

"Don't--oh, don't!" she cried out. "I am Sam's Maria!"

"Well--I am Maria's Sam!"

Off went the dark wig and the black whiskers--there smiled the dear face she had not forgotten! I leave you to imagine the tableau; even the cat got up to look, and Bose sat on his stump of a tail, and wondered if he was on his heels or his head.

The widow gave one little scream, and then she--

But, stop! Quiet people like you and me, dear reader, who have got over all these follies, and can do nothing but turn up our noses at them, have no business here. I will only add that two hearts were very happy, that Bose concluded after a while that all was right, and so lay down to sleep again, and that one week afterward, on Christmas Eve, there was a wedding at the house that made the neighbors stare. The widow had married her First Love!

THE OLD MAN'S CHRISTMAS.

BY ELLA WHEELER WILc.o.x.

I.

Though there was wrong on both sides, they never would have separated had it not been for the old man.

He was Ben's father, and Ben was an only child--a spoiled, selfish, high-tempered lad, who had grown up with the idea that his father, Anson English, or the "old man," as his dutiful son called him, was much richer than he really was, and that he had no need of any personal effort--any object in life, aside from the pursuit of pleasure.

Ben's mother had died when he was fifteen years old and his father had never married again. Yet it was not any allegiance to her memory which had kept Anson English from a second marriage. He remembered her, to be sure, and scarcely a day pa.s.sed without his mentioning her. But after her death, as during her weary life, he used her name as a synonym for all that was undesirable. He compared everybody to "'Liz'beth," and always to her disadvantage. He had a word of praise and encouragement and approval for every housewife in the neighborhood except--his own.

Whatever went wrong, in doors or out, "'Liz'beth" was the direct or indirect cause.

During the first five years of her married life, Elizabeth made strenuous exertions to please her husband. She wept her sweet eyes dim over her repeated failures. Then she found that she had been attempting an impossible labor, and grew pa.s.sively indifferent--an indifference which lasted until death kindly released her.

Elizabeth had been a tidy housekeeper during these first years.

"You'd scrub and scour a man out 'er house an' home!" was all the praise her husband gave her for her order and cleanliness; and to his neighbors, to whom he was fond of paying informal visits, he would often say--"Liz'beth's at it again--sweepin' and cleanin', so I cleared out.

Never see _her_ without out a broom in her hand. I'd a good deal rather have a little more dirt, than so much tearin' 'round. 'Liz'beth tires me, with her ways."

Yet, when in the indifference of despair which seized upon Elizabeth before her death, she allowed her house to look after itself, Anson was no better satisfied.

"I've come over to find a place to set down," he would tell his neighbors. "'Liz'beth's let things 'c.u.mulate, till the house is a sight to see--she's gettin' dreadful slack, somehow. A man likes order when he goes home to rest from all his cares."

Even when she died she displeased him by choosing a busy season for the occasion.

"Just like 'Liz'beth, to die in hayin' time," he said. "Everything got to stop--hay spoilin'--men idle. Women never seem to have no system about work matters--no power of plannin' things, to make it convenient like for men folks."

Yet after she was gone, Anson found how much help she had been to him, how wonderful her economy had been, how light her expenditures. He knew he could never find any one to replace her, in these respects, and as money considerations were the main ones in his mind he believed it would be the better economy to remain a widower, and hire his work done.

So during those most critical years of Ben's life, he had been without a woman's guidance or care.

At eighteen he was all that arrogance, conceit, selfishness, and high temper could render him. Yet he was a favorite with the fair s.e.x for all that, as he had a manly figure, and a warm, caressing way when he chose, that won their admiration and pleased their vanity.

Anson English favored early marriages, and began to think it would be better all around if Ben should bring a wife home.

She could do the work better than hired help, and keep the money all in the family. And Ben would not waste his time and means on half a dozen, as he was now doing, but would stay at home, no doubt, and settle down into a sensible, practical business man. Yes, Ben ought to marry, and his father told him so.

Ben smiled.

"I'm already thinking of it," he said. He had expected opposition from his father, and was surprised at his suggestion.

"Yes," continued the "old man," as Ben already designated him, "I'd like to see you settle down before you're twenty-one. But you want to make a good choice. There's Abby Wilson, now. She's got the muscle of a man, and ain't afraid of anything. And her father has a fine property--a growin' property. Abby'll make a man a good, vigorous helpmate, and she'll bring him money in time. You'd better shine up to Abby, Ben."

Ben gave a contemptuous laugh. "I'd as soon marry a dressed-up boy," he said. "She's more like a boy than a girl in her looks and in her ways. I have other plans in my mind, father, more to my taste. I mean to marry Edith Gilman, if she'll take me, and I think she will."

A dark frown contracted Anson English's brow.

"Edith Gilman?" he repeated; "why, that puny schoolma'm, with her baby face and weak voice, 'll never help _you_ to get a livin', Ben. What are you thinkin' of?"

"Of love, father, I guess. I love her, and that's all there is of it.

And I shall marry her, if she'll take me, and you can like it or lump it, as you please. She's a good girl, and if she's treated well all round, she'll make a good wife, and she's the only woman that can put the check rein on me, when I get in my tempers. She'll make a man of me yet."

"But she can't work," insisted the father. "She looks as white and puny as 'Liz'beth did the year she died."

"She's overworked in the school-room. I mean to take her home, and give her a rest. I don't ask any woman to marry me and be my drudge. I expect my wife will keep help."

The old man groaned aloud. Ben's ideas were positively ruinous. If he married this girl, it would add to, not decrease, the family expenses.

But it was useless to oppose. Ben would do as he pleased, the old man saw that plainly, and he might as well submit.