The Misfit Christmas Puddings Part 2

of itsilf."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'AN' ARE YE INSINOOATIN', MISTHER RAFFERTY'"]

He was a constant comfort to his daughter, but the sweetness of his spirit was gall and wormwood to Granny. If there is one thing more exasperating than another to a caustic temperament, it is the constant companionship of a bland and optimistic disposition. In Granny's case the necessity of maintaining both sides of a quarrel kept her tongue sharpened to a piercing point.

After a moment's quiet, Mrs. M'Carty slipped the pipe out of Granny's mouth and returned it to her filled. It was accepted, though thanklessly. With a smile and an understanding nod to her father, Bridget returned to her tubs.

She finished her washing and put things to rights. Then she drew from a box where she kept a few things from Granny's prying eyes, her sorry Christmas presents,--some pictures cut from an ill.u.s.trated paper and pasted on squares of cardboard.

"The poor darlings," she said. "I can't even be buying them trifling presents. I must be saving every penny, for the first of the month is coming, and the agent, bad 'cess to him, will be here to lift the rent. An' these poor picters is all I've got for Christmas for the biggest ones, and nothing at all for the next size, and the same for the middlest size and the littlest ones, and never a thing for the baby. I most wish I'd let little Patsy keep the ball he stole from the Wilkeson boy."

The strain of the recent encounter had told on Mrs. M'Carty's usually steady nerves, and her inability to contribute to her children's holiday enjoyment filled her with sudden resentment.

"I suppose them Barneys up on Fifth Street will every one of them be strutting and ballyragging 'round with gewgaws, and fixings, and such like things. Faith, they'll need them to be making themselves look decent, so they will. Truth, every single one of them Barneys has more freckles than I could find on my whole nine together, if I searched with a candle. And why can't they be having what they're after wanting! Anybody can buy that has money."

Bridget laid the pictures back in the box.

"You can stay there," she said, closing the cover. "It will never do to be giving something to one and nothing to the rest of them. Bedad, I'd like to put my eye on a dollar once. It's always to be watching a cent that makes a body short-sighted."

_Third Episode_

HERR BAUMGaRTNER'S ESTABLISHMENT TEN O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING THE DAY BEFORE CHRISTMAS

It was Herr Baumgartner's habit to open his mouth almost as prudently as his purse, but when at ten o'clock one of his clerks returned without the amount of the bill he had been sent out to collect, the baker lost patience.

"You cannot get dat moneys! Haf you said how I must pay my insurance, and all der clerks in dis big store, and all der extras for Christmas?

How will I pay for dem if my moneys comes not back again? Haf you said how I must haf it?"

The clerk explained that he had told Mr. Weiss, the debtor, all this and that he had said he would pay, without fail, the first of the next month.

"Next mont'!" cried the indignant baker. "He haf told me dat same t'ing six times already! First he write he will send it next mont'; den he say, 'Soon as my interest is due I will pay;' next times, 'My wife she is sick and you must wait yet a little while.' Go tell him I vill haf dat moneys dis day!"

The clerk departed as he was bidden. The baker shook his head angrily.

"Ach, dose peoples! I haf no patience mit dem. In Germany Fritz Weiss was dat honest and goot. It is all along of his wife. She must haf one fine house, and dere girls such clot'es,--like one Baronin,--vich is bad for dem, and for my Katrina too, ven she know of it. Bewahre, dat my Katrina should so dress. Yet I haf die means and Fritz he haf not.

So foolish a wife he haf. Gott sei Dank! My blessed wife war nicht so.

She had always so much goot sense, and dose girls are not like my Katrina. Nein, I haf not seen one Madchen like mein Katrina, immer sehr schon und gut."

At this moment Herr Baumgartner looked out of his office and saw his Katrina entering the store.

"Ach, dere is mein Katrina. She makes me always glad ven I see her,"

he mused, watching her with loving eyes as she came through the store.

Katrina was a picture to delight other eyes than those of her father.

A ma.s.s of wavy, flaxen hair framed a face of rare tints of pink and pearl. Beautiful blue eyes she had, eyes that could be trustful or merry under their long lashes, while the sweet, smiling mouth with its full-arched upper lip was not the least of Katrina's charms. When one looked at her it was like beholding the vision of some bewitching, Saxon princess.

Herr Baumgartner was not burdened with a large family, for he had only this one daughter, so it would seem that Katrina Baumgartner might have advantages denied many of her companions. She had rather unusual advantages, for while her girl friends were learning to paint uncertain flowers, and to entertain with equally dubious musical accomplishments, Katrina's father had insisted that his daughter must learn the art of the housewife.

As Katrina pa.s.sed through the store she had a word or a nod of recognition for each busy clerk, and for the customers whom she knew.

She stopped to leave a small package with Max Schaub for his little lame August; and when George Reigel's sick Freda opened her box on Christmas morning she was to find a doll that Miss Katrina's artful fingers had dressed.

When Katrina's mother was alive she had taught her child, through years of precept and example, an uncommon interpretation of the holiday giving,--that the family and friends were not to be thought of until many a Christmas surprise had been planned for the needy and unexpectant. The baker himself came in for a share of the waves of grat.i.tude that swept toward his home at each holiday season, though this tide of good feeling was largely due to his thoughtful daughter.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "AS KATRINA Pa.s.sED THROUGH THE STORE"]

Katrina felt the blessedness of giving, but just now she had other joys, as well, to keep her heart aglow. She was at the age when most girls have considerable liberty in their personal affairs, but this was not the case with Katrina.

Herr Baumgartner settled the questions of his household with the same attention and decision that he gave to his business. Consequently his daughter was a frequent visitor at her father's store, where she came to consult him on the trivial as well as upon the most important questions pertaining to their domestic concerns.

When she presented herself before Herr Baumgartner's desk on this morning before Christmas, he greeted her with his usual question on such occasions:

"Was willst du, Katrinchen?"

"Something nice this time, Vater. The big snow-storm has come just in time for Christmas, you know, and I am invited to a sleigh-ride party to-night. I may go, may I not?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'I MAY GO, MAY I NOT?'"]

"A sleigh-ride den?" and he smiled and said, "Only once is one young!--But who asked you to go on dat sleigh-ride?"

"Johann Hermann asked me this morning," replied Katrina, blushing a little, "but I told him I must first ask you."

"Ach, so! Vat for a man is der Johann dat of a morning he comes to ask you, Tochterchen? Vat does he?"

"He keeps books, Father, and he stopped on his way to his work. He came just after you had gone this morning, and he will come at noon to see if I may go."

"Is he son of dat Herr Frederick Hermann dat knows not so much to stick to one job steady?"

"Oh, no, Father, he is not like that," protested Katrina, earnestly.

"He told me this morning that he meant to work hard while he was young so that he might earn money enough to be able to rest when he is old.

He said he knew a man who had made a bank account that way, and he meant to do it too."

"Nun, gut,--dat man he means might be me, Katrina," said Herr Baumgartner, with a little glance of pride at his inner man.

"He did not say it was you, Vater, but he is a good young man and I know you will like him. And I may go?"

Herr Baumgartner found it very hard to refuse Katrina anything, and when he felt obliged to do so he consoled himself with the reflection:

"It causes me sorrow not to give her everyt'ings, but it is better for her."

However, he felt that this was not the time for the discipline of self-denial, so he gave his consent.

"Ja wohl, to-night kannst du, Katrinchen."

"Oh, thank you, thank you, Father," and she gave his arm an affectionate squeeze as together they pa.s.sed out of the office.