stockings weren’t no good.”
“Why not?”
“Sho! they fitted tight! Stockings ought ter wrinkle. Like these. Then they keep yer legs warm. See?”
Miss Margaret saw: Wulfy’s wisdom was, as usual, convincing.
“I’ve seen Milly,” he announced.
“I’m glad. Was Milly pleased to see you?”
“Yes. She kissed me,” he said with shy pleasure. “They’re good to her. She has puddens twice a week. I gave Milly my gold watch.”
“Why, Wulfy! I thought you liked your gold watch.”
“Like it! Guess I did. ’T ain’t every feller as has a gold watch. Milly liked it too.”
Every shred of his Christmas gifts had vanished. To trace them was impossible. The pony, it seemed, and the candy had also gone to Milly. The knife, the ball, and all the rest had doubtless been distributed among the members of the youthful procession which had followed Wulfy through the street in his hour of triumph. He had not kept a peanut for himself.
“Wulfy,” said Miss Margaret soberly one day, willing to try him, “oh, Wulfy, where are your Christmas things? Aren’t you sorry they are all gone?”
Wulfy looked sober too for a minute, and his worldly-wise little lip quivered childishly. Then a smile broke over his face, he gave a brief chuckle, as was his wont when pleased, and then croaked jubilantly: “I had ’em once.”
Happy Wulfy! In this short sentence he had found a philosophy of life.
And Milly? Did Milly, who was a “bad girl” who had known a wild and secret life, did Milly care for a tin gold watch, for candy, and for a pony on wheels? Did she take them to please the little brother whose clinging loyalty may have been the one tie that held her to good? Or did the child perhaps still live in Milly,—poor Milly, who, although she was bad, was only twelve years old, after all,—and did she like the pony and watch for their own sake, with a little girl’s affection? Who shall say!
Wulfy, at least, was happy. Santa Claus had given him the two greatest pleasures in life: the pleasure of possession and the pleasure of sacrifice.
* * * *
Miss Margaret went home soon after this: it was a year before she returned to lower New York. The day after her arrival Wulfy “came over.” He looked plumper, his face was clean, and his clothes were neatly patched. Altogether he was a far less uncanny object than of old.
“Good mornin’,” said Wulfy, “I’ve got a new mother. She ain’t a friend of my father’s. She’s a new mother—a real one. She cooks my meals. Look here,”—holding out a fine patch,—“she did that. Look at them pants. I got ’em off my father. She told him to ’em for me. Once I didn’t go home, she thought I was lost, and, do yer know, she cried till she was black and blue. She was sorry.”
With this wondrous climax he paused breathless and rapturous. So Wulfy was to know the joy of being missed, of being shielded! He was no longer to depend on the chance kindness of the butcher-lady or the grudged two cents of his father to feed his small body; no longer would he laboriously scrape together stray pennies to buy for himself the shirts that barely covered his thin little chest. The waif of the streets was to be a waif no more. He was to know, though in a rough and poor fashion, something of the kindness of a home. Already the child-face, that of old showed only in rare moments, had become habitual to him; and the wicked and antique wisdom which had overspread it as a mask came back only in flashes now and then. The stunted body and sunny soul might know a little comfort at last. Life was sweet to Wulfy now.
Yet not all sweet. Still there was sorrow; still, disappointment, and desire unfulfilled. For Milly was not at home.
“I goes to see her,” said Wulfy. “But I don’t tell her about the new mother. I tell her its jist another friend of my father; for if she knew it was a new mother, Milly’d want ter come home. An’ they say she can’t come home—yet.”
A CHRISTMAS DILEMMA: (A TRUE STORY), by Anonymous
The dilemma in this story is probably familiar to most readers. During the Gilded Age, Christmas gift-giving expanded to include not just family—as had been the custom—but also friends, acquaintances, and business associates. For the first time in American history, people felt obliged to weigh the value of their relationships and give gifts accordingly. A Christmas Dilemma is a lighthearted look at a sometimes vexing social predicament.
“John,” said Mrs. Spencer to her husband, “I don’t know what to do about the Martins’ Christmas presents.”
Dr. Spencer looked up from the paper he was reading. “Do?” he said vacantly. “What do you mean?”
Mrs. Spencer laid her work in her lap and moved the student-lamp on the table between them, to get a better view of her husband’s face.
“Come up to the surface, John,” she said, “and listen, because I really need your advice.”
The doctor rested his paper on his knees and “climbed over his glasses” at his wife.
“Go ahead,” he said; “you have my attention.”
Mrs. Spencer continued seriously:
“You know what a nuisance these Christmas presents have come to be between the Martins and ourselves, and how much I want to stop them; and yet—” She paused, and her husband’s face assumed an amused expression.
“Well, my dear Ellen, my advice is, leave off sending them. It is the solution of the difficulty. It will immediately relieve the situation.”
Mrs. Spencer nodded, and tapped the table with her thimble.
“It is what I wish to do,” she said. “I am sure it is as great a worry to Mrs. Martin as it is to me; but the point is, how to leave them off. I cannot be the first to stop. Just suppose I should send nothing, and she should send the usual great basket with a present for every one of us—you, the children, the servants,—last Christmas she even sent a collar for Don,—I should die of mortification.”
Dr. Spencer took off his glasses and looked gravely across the table at his wife.
“I have often thought,” he said, “that there were too many women’s societies in this town; but I see the need for one more—a Society for the Suppression of Christmas Presents. Send out circulars, beginning with Mrs. Martin. You ought to get a large and enthusiastic membership.”
Mrs. Spencer sighed, and took up her work again.
“You don’t advise me at all,” she said; “you only joke, and I really think this is a serious matter.”
“My dear Ellen, I am willing to advise you, but the whole difficulty seems to me a ridiculous one. There is only one thing to do. Stop short now. Suppose she does send you a basket? It will be the last time. It’s the shortest and simplest way to end it.”
“I might,” said Mrs. Spencer, meditatively, “not send anything at Christmas, and then, in case she does, I could return them presents at intervals throughout the year—on their birthdays, at Easter,
