The Cinder Pond Part 30

Three days before Christmas, Jeanne obeyed a sudden impulse to call on Old Captain. She had purchased a pipe for Barney and wanted to be sure that it was just exactly right. Old Captain would know. It was Sat.u.r.day.

Old Captain would surely be home, tidying his freight car and heating water for his weekly shave.

But where _was_ Old Captain? The door of the box-car was _locked_. Such a thing had never happened before. Locked from the outside, too. There was a brand-new padlock.

"I guess he's doing his Christmas shopping," said Jeanne. "Or perhaps he's _done_ it and is afraid somebody'll steal my present. I wonder if it's a pink parasol, or some pink silk stockings. Dear Old Captain! He thinks pink is my color, and the _pinker_ it is the better he likes it.

I do believe I'll buy him a pink necktie. But no, he'd _wear_ it.

Besides, I have that nice m.u.f.fler for him. Well, it's pretty cold around here and I'd hate to freeze to this bench, and there's no knowing when he'll get back. Maybe Mr. Fairchild knows about pipes."

So Jeanne trudged homeward, but not, you may be sure, without a searching glance at the beach, where the dream-chest should have been--but wasn't.

"We're going to have our tree Christmas eve," said Mrs. Fairchild, that evening, when the family sat before the cheerful grate fire that Jeanne considered much pleasanter than a gas log. "But we won't take anything off the tree itself until Christmas night. On Christmas eve we'll open just the bundles we find _under_ the tree. That'll make our Christmas last twice as long. Oh, I'm _so_ excited! Jeanne, you aren't _half_ as young as I am. Roger, you stolid boy, you sedate old gentleman, why don't you get up more enthusiasm?"

"I always get all the things I want and _then_ some," said Roger, lazily, "so why worry?"

"You're a spoiled child," laughed Jeanne.

Mr. Fairchild, however, seemed to wear an air of pleased expectancy, quite different from Roger's calmness.

"Having a daughter to liven things up," said Mr. Fairchild, "is a new experience for us. You can see how well it agrees with us both. I hope, Jeanne, you're giving me a pipe just like Barney's--n.o.body _ever_ gave me one like that."

"I'm awfully sorry," said Jeanne, "but I haven't the price. That pipe cost sixty-nine cents, and I haven't that much in all the world. You'll have to wait till my kindergarten salary begins."

Mr. Fairchild looked at his wife, touched his breast pocket where a paper rustled, threw back his head, and _roared_.

"How perfectly delicious!" exclaimed Mrs. Fairchild. Then _her_ merry laugh rang out.

"What _is_ the joke?" asked Jeanne. "Can _you_ see it, Roger?"

"No, I can't--they're just havin' fun with us. But, if eleven cents would help you any--"

Roger's clothes fitted so snugly that it was rather a difficult task to extract the eleven pennies from his pocket; but he fished them out, one by one.

"There, as your Captain would say, 'Them's yourn.' I hope you won't be reckless with 'em because they're all I've got--except a quarter. You can't have that."

"Why!" said Jeanne, who had been counting on her fingers, "this makes just enough. I _had_ fifty-eight cents. I wonder what Uncle Charles would have done if I'd bought _him_ a pipe. He always smoked cigarettes--a smelly kind that I didn't like. I wouldn't have _dared_.

He'd have been polite, but he would have looked at the pipe as if--as if it were a snail in his coffee!"

"Oh, Jeanne!" protested Mrs. Fairchild. "What a horrid thought!"

"_Isn't_ it? Now when can I buy that other pipe? Not tomorrow, because of that school entertainment. That'll last until dark. Not the next day morning---"

"Very late the day before Christmas," decided Mrs. Fairchild, quickly, "I'll take you downtown in the car. Then you can take your parcels to Bessie and Lucy and invite them to the Christmas night part of the tree, while I'm doing a few errands. Remember, Christmas _night_, not Christmas eve."

When the time came to do this final shopping, Jeanne was left alone to select the pipe and to go on foot, first to Lucy's, then to Bessie's.

Mrs. Fairchild was to call for her at Bessie's.

"I may be late," said she, "but no matter how long it is, I want you to wait for the car. It'll be dark by that time--the days are so short. You telephoned Bessie that you were coming?"

"Yes, she'll surely be home."

"Then that's all right. Be sure to wait for the car. Good-by, dear. Have a good time."

Jeanne paused for a moment to gaze thoughtfully after the departing lady.

"She looks nice, she sounds nice, and she _is_ nice," said Jeanne. "I suppose Aunt Agatha had to stay the way she was made, but as long as there's so _much_ of her, it seems a pity they left out such a lot.

Perhaps they make folks the way they do plum puddings and don't always get the fruit in _even_. Maybe they forgot Aunt Agatha's raisins and most of the sugar and put extra ones in Mrs. Fairchild. Maybe I ought to try to like Aunt Agatha better--I'm glad I made her a needle-book, anyway, if it happens that she isn't to blame for _not_ having any raisins. But it's nice not to have to _try_ to like Mrs. Fairchild. I'd have to try _not_ to."

The shops were very Christmas-y and all the shoppers seemed excited and happy and busy. There were parcels under all the arms or else there were baskets filled with Christmas dinners. Jeanne loved it all--the Christmas feel in the air, the Christmas shine in the faces.

Unconsciously, she loitered along the busy street after the pipe was purchased, thinking all sorts of quaint thoughts.

"If my father and my grandfather are in the same part of heaven," said she, "I'm sure they must be friends by now, because they both loved me--and my mother. They'd have _lots_ of things to talk about. Perhaps they can see me now. Perhaps they're glad that my heart is full of Christmas. I _know_ they must be thankful for Mrs. Fairchild. But if Mollie can see _her_ children--Oh, I _hope_ Mrs. Fairchild got their box off in time. And I do hope that new aunt has _some_ Christmas in her heart. All these people with bundles are just _shining_ with Christmas."

Jeanne, of course, was far from suspecting that her own bright little face was so radiant with the holiday spirit that many a person paused for a second glance.

CHAPTER XXVII

THE PINK PRESENT

Although Jeanne loitered outside shop windows and kept a sharp lookout for Old Captain, who _might_ be shopping for pink parasols, although she lingered at Lucy's and stayed and stayed and _stayed_ at Bessie's, it seemed as if it were taking Mrs. Fairchild a very great while to come with the promised car. It was that lady's husband who came with it finally.

"Come on, Sister," said he, when Jeanne appeared on the doorstep. "That other child is still finding things to put on that tree."

"Roger?" asked Jeanne.

"No, indeed. Mrs. Fairchild--_she's_ our youngest, these days. So I had to come for you. Hop in--it's pretty cold for the engine. Did you buy that pipe? Good! We'll stop for some tobacco--shall I get you some for Barney? He's coming to the tree, too, is he? That's good. If his pipe draws better than mine I'll take it away from him. Now, you cuddle under the rugs and I'll stop for the 'baccy."

There were other errands after that. In spite of Mr. Fairchild's cheerful conversation concerning these various errands, it seemed to Jeanne that the fastest little car in Bancroft was very slow about getting home that evening. They arrived _just_ in time for dinner.

Mrs. Fairchild met them at the front door.

"Don't waste a minute," said she, fairly dragging them inside. "Dinner's on the table. Your soup's getting cold. You can wash your hands in the downstairs lavatory, Jeanne--no time to go upstairs."

"Mother's so excited that her hair's coming down," observed Roger, at the table. "And she's so mysterious that I shouldn't be a bit surprised if she had a young elephant or a full-grown horse hidden upstairs in the spare-room closet. Look at her eyes."

"I feel," confessed Mrs. Fairchild, who had never looked prettier than she did at that moment, "as if I were jumping right out of my skin.

_Did_ I eat my soup! Or did Mary take it away?"

Roger roared.

"Oh, Mumsey!" he said. "You're younger than I was at _three_. If you had _two_ girls to fix a tree for, you'd starve. You haven't touched your steak--what _is_ that noise? This house is full of strange sounds--as if Santa Claus were stuck fast in our chimney. Shall I--"

Mrs. Fairchild hopped up, ran to the front hall, and slipped a record into the phonograph. A _noisy_ record and the machine wide open.

"Why, Mumsey!" said Roger, as the clattering music filled the room, "I thought you hated that record."