A Christmas Story Part 2

''Tain't my fault.'

Hopelessly resigned, my sister Mary politely requested her to put down the waiter, and explained the nature of a witness's duty. We acknowledged our signatures and Dinah wrote out her name in a neat hand, then picked up the waiter and walked out of the room with the air of an injured innocent.

I jumped up, kissed my sister, informed her that for the next three months she was to be a _pa.s.sive_ observer, asked her to retire, locked up the contract, and gave the bell one pull that brought half the household to the door.

PART II.

_A MAN'S PLAN._

As the servants rushed into the library they found me quietly reading a book and puffing at the pages. I slightly raised my eyes to this back ground of faces on which might be seen, surprise, anger, impertinence, curiosity and excitement. I slowly placed my book half open across my knee, with my hand resting on the cover, and with the other taking my segar out of my mouth, knocked the ashes off into a little gla.s.s tub; elevated my eyebrows and asked in perfect astonishment, yet measured tones:

'What-is-the-matter?'

'That's what we want to know sir;' exclaimed the cook, a little let down by my coolness.

'Nothing that I know of,' I replied, except that I took the liberty of ringing my bell,' increasing in volume as I spoke.

'We thought some one was sick, sir,' said Sabina.

'I don't want to know what _you_ thought,' I rolled out in emphatic base, 'I want the WAITER! which is _it_?'--That neuter cut them to the heart.

But they rallied--a revolt was imminent. I had lived in the family one year, with my sister as housekeeper, and had never made a remark to the servants, it being my habit in life to submit to what was not my business, or clear out. But now--_now_, with Imprimatur on my forehead, a clutch in my mental fingers, and a hungry longing to rule free: ha!

ha!--Let us see. This was a trying moment--The vessel had been signalled, and my colors were to be shown--so here they go--the flag of the little brig 'one-man-power,' with the motto 'Anvil or hammar answer hammar,' is unfurled.

Hemmed in by swelling indignation, whisperings and sullen looks, I jumped up and yelled in stentorian voice:

'Leave my room! How dare you answer the waiter's bell? Send me the waiter and clear out, every one of you!' and, with a sweeping wave of my hand, I stalked towards the door. Reader, did you ever see the sun chase a big cloud right off a green field, and, with no respite, drive it headlong away over beyond the horizon? Such was the rapid departure of my stupefied retainers. On reaching the door, I slammed it to with a violence that echoed through the hushed and palsied house.

Oh the benefit of a good slam--not a push--nor a quick shut--nor even a b.u.mp, all of which show still a want of firmness and decision--but a good old-fashioned 'bang' as though it had got into your throat and you could'nt breathe--that life depended on shutting out a flash of lightning and you hadn't time to wait--that the harder you impelled it against the doorway the sooner would end fast fleeting agony--that the nearer you got to what might be called an _explosive shut_: the more complete would be your safety, that if all your concentrated pa.s.sion could be, not flung, (that is too weak) but hurled at that one part.i.tion a vacuum might be made in your room towards which good impulses might be drawn inversely. Many a good natured man who has been cornered by injustice has slammed off his anger, and is ready to forgive, but not give up. There is a dignity in this rapid developement of muscular power which admits of no surrender--the gauntlet has been thrown down, the chip has been knocked off the shoulder, the black flag is hoisted and skull and bones stand out in bold relief. There may be a calm, the wind may die out, but the monster waves once lashed up to a t.i.tanic power move on of their own accord, and wash away the very vestige of resistance. Asking to _be_ forgiven after slamming a door is like touching off a Rodman gun, and then calling out to the fort in front to 'look out' 'take care!' 'do get out of the way.' A first cla.s.s slam is c.u.mulative long after the noise has ceased--the nerves go on slamming--the valves of the heart flap to and from--the tympanum roils a revelrie to all the shattered senses, the offender slammed at, at once subsides from rage to fear; the mental barometer falls--and apprehension--the requiescat--is a don't know what is coming next. A bona fide, abandoned slam is a Domestic Earthquake.

I next sat down on my Mexican chair, and waited for the rapid hatching of the egg. A register led up from the kitchen into my room, and though never used, formed one of those abominable listening tubes that might be truthfully called family tale-bearers. This time, however, I had the pleasure of overhearing the following fragmentary evidence of a reaction:

'He must be crazy.' 'Did he drink much after dinner?' 'I say, you have been here longer than I have, have you ever seen him so before?' Then a giggle, and some one saying: 'Is he married?'

'Sabina, ain't you ashamed to laugh?'--'poor thing--won't stay--gallows'--then silence, and in a few minutes one after another of the visitors pa.s.sed by under the window on tip-toe, and almost immediately a soft knock and a pause. I thought * * * and acted.

'Come in,' said I, in one of those gentle and subdued voices that no one but a pa.s.sionate man can possess. The door gradually opened, and there stood Susan, the devoted aunt.

I had placed a volume of engravings before my eyes, and was busily engaged in drawing some plan, on paper, as she entered. I went on for a little while in silence, when she said:

'I understood, sir----'

I said 'wait a minute,' and went on ruling one entire side, with double lines, in perfect forgetfulness of her presence.

When she spoke again, 'Did you send for me, sir?' I would have answered at once, for I felt awfully at appearing such a tyro; but the case was a desperate one of long standing, and required heroic treatment. I kept her waiting, at first as a lesson, that her imagination might take wings and fly to the uttermost realms of unhappiness. The second time, I thought I detected a little impatience in her voice, so I said, taking a pen and dipping it in red ink, 'wait one moment, Susan,' and went on lining and interlining. This was not reading, studying, nor writing; it was what she very well knew I could do any time. So it told on her. Each moment her valor oozed out, and as soon as I felt that the cup of bitterness was pretty well drained, I proceeded to offer up this victim as a sacrifice to peace.

'Susan, how is your sister's child?'

I looked straight into her. There was no sternness or smartness in my expression, but the gaze was mathematical. I was measuring her candor, and a.n.a.lyzing her mind.

She colored up and said, 'he's no better, sir; and they've given him up: but the doctor says good nursing will do wonders.'

'I think so, too. Go back to your sister and stay till he is better; I will supply your place.'

This puzzled her, but she could say nothing. I meant 'go' and she went.--There was no delay--I saw her walk by the window almost at once, and overheard the whisper, 'who next?'

I now rang the bell, and Dinah came to the door, saying, before she knocked, the waiter is out, sir, so I answered your ring.

'Do you know where Thomas lives?'

'Yes sir.'

'Then tell him I want him now--'

'Yes sir,' she disappeared.

Oh the benefit of that _slam_.

In half an hour in walked Thomas.

'Never do you enter my room without knocking. It is a piece of impertinence I will not put up with.'

'I did not mean anything by it, sir.'

'Well, don't do it again, and always take your hat off when you come before a gentleman or lady. Such ignorance might lose you a good place.'

His wages were high I knew. It was also winter, and he gave in. He stood still with his hat in hand and waited.

'Thomas I want you to bring the close carriage to the door with the two bays.'

'Yes sir; but the off horse cast his hind shoe yesterday and I am afraid.'

'You need not be, the ground is covered with snow. I shall want the carriage in fifteen minutes.'

'Yes sir, but--'

'But what?'

'I left the carriage this morning at the blacksmiths to have a new tire put on it, sir.'

'Who told you to?'

'n.o.body, sir.'

'Then never do anything of that kind again without first reporting it to me.'