Eleanor Hallowell Abbott

“ Round and round the room spun the Yellow Canary and the Black Plush Bag!
Retreating as best she could from her muslin nose,—the Bengal Tiger or rather that which was within the Bengal Tiger, waged her war for Freedom! Ripping like a chicken through its shell she succeeded at last in hatching one front paw and one hind paw into action. Wallowing,—stumbling,—rolling,—yowling,—she humped from mantle-piece to chair-top, and from box to table.
Loyally the rabbit-eared Setter took up the chase. Mauled in the scuffle he ran with his meek face upside down! ”

“ In the curve of her cheek a dimple opened suddenly. "Well ... maybe," said Flame.
As though the word were wings the Lay Reader snatched his hat and sped out into the night.
It was astonishing how all the warm housey air seemed to rush out with him, and all the shivery frost rush back.
A little bit listlessly Flame dragged down the bandage from her eyes.
"It must be the creaks on the stairs [94] that make it so awfully lonely all of a sudden," argued Flame. "It must be because the dogs snore so.... No mere man could make it so empty." ”

“ If Flame had never in her life admired the Lay Reader she certainly would have admired him now for the sheer cold-blooded foresight which had presaged the inevitable reaction of the dogs upon the mush and the mush upon the dogs. ”

“ From a pedestal of boxes fairly bulging with red-wheeled go-carts, one keen young elbow rammed for balance into a gay glassy shelf of stick-candy, [4] green tissue garlands tickling across her cheek, she sped the message to her mother.
"O Mother-Funny!" triumphed Flame. "I've found out who's Christmasing at the Rattle-Pane House!—It's a red-haired setter dog with one black ear! And he's sitting at the front gate this moment! Superintending the unpacking of the furniture van! And I've named him Lopsy!"
"Why, Flame; how—absurd!" gasped her mother. ”

“ How else could so little a girl have managed so big a turkey?"
"There ... isn't any ... carving knife," whispered Flame.
The tears were glistening on her cheeks now instead of just in her eyes. A less observing man than Delcote might have thought the tears were really for the carving knife.
"What? No carving knife?" he roared imperiously. "And the house guaranteed 'furnished'?" Very furiously he began to hunt all around the kitchen in the most impossible places.
"Oh, it's furnished all right," quivered Flame. "It's just chock-full of dead things! Pressed flowers! ”

“ For I warn you perfectly frankly that I am distinctly pro-dog and distinctly pro-Christmas, and would like to bring to this little story whatever whiff of fir-balsam I can cajole from the make-believe forest in my typewriter, and every glitter of tinsel, smudge of toy candle, crackle of wrapping paper, that my particular [2] brand of brain and ink can conjure up on a single keyboard! And very large-sized dogs shall romp through every page! ”

“ Its swelling, tender muslin throat fairly reeking with the suggestion of innocent song! No one gazing once upon such ornithological purity would ever speak a harsh word again, even to a sparrow!
Nudging Miss Flora cautiously from her sonorous nap, Flame beguiled her [97] with half a doughnut to her appointed chair, boosted her still cautiously to her pinnacle of books, and with various swift adjustments of fasteners, knotting of tie-strings,—an extra breathing hole jabbed through the beak, slipped the canary's beautiful blond countenance over Miss Flora's frankly grizzled mug. ”

“ So if there's any fatalities come this Christmas Time, Barret', he says, 'or any undue gains in weight or losses in weight, I shall infer, Barret', he says, 'that you was absent without leave.' ... It don't look like a very wholesome Christmas for me," sighed the old Butler. "Not either way. Not what you'd call wholesome."
"But this Mr. Delcote?" puzzled Flame. "What a perfectly horrid man [31] he must be to give such heavenly dogs nothing but dog-bread and milk for their Christmas dinner!... Is he young? Is he old? Is he thin? Is he fat? ”

“ And the mercury shiver perpetually in the vicinity of zero! And every foot of earth be crusty-brown and bare with no white snow at all till the very last moment when you'd just about given up hope! And all the heart of the story is very,—oh very young! ”

“ With more manners than efficiency Flame and her Father dropped at once every helpful thing they were doing and sat down in rocking chairs to listen to the plan.
"Flame, of course, can't stay here all alone. Flame's Mother turned and confided sotto voce to her husband. Young men might call. The Lay Reader is almost sure to call.... He's a dear delightful soul of course, but I'm afraid he has an amorous eye."
"All Lay Readers have amorous eyes," reflected her husband. "Taken all in all it is a great asset." ”

“ We live so near and everything.... And can run like the wind! Oh, not Mother, of course!... She's a bit stout! And Father starts all right but usually gets thinking of something else! But I...? Kindly announce to Miss Flora," she repeated with palpable crispness, "that the Minister's Daughter is at the door!"
Fixedly old, fixedly crumpled, fixedly imperturbable, the Butler stepped back a single jerky pace and bowed her towards the parlor.
"Now," thrilled Flame, "the adventure really begins." ”

“ But when she insists on inhaling it, too!"
"Miss Flora?" gasped the Lay Reader. "Is this a Mad House?"
"Miss Flora is a—a dog," confided Flame a bit coolly. "I neglected—it seems—to state that this is a dog-party that I'm having."
"Dogs?" winced the Lay Reader. "Will they bite?"
"Only if you don't trust them," confided Flame.
"But it's so hard to trust a dog that will bite you if you don't trust him," frowned the Lay Reader. "It makes such a sort of a—a vicious circle, as it were." ”

“ In one of the chairs a dog stirred quite irrelevantly. Cocking her own head towards the wood-shed Flame could not be perfectly sure whether she heard a twinge of cat or a twinge of conscience. The unflinching glare of the Bengal Tiger only served to increase her self-reproach.
"After all," reasoned Flame, "it would be easy enough to set another place! And pile a few extra books!... I'm almost [100] sure I saw a black plush bag in the parlor.... If the cat could be put in something like a black plush bag,—something perfectly enveloping like that? ”

“ Why, really, Miss Flame, I couldn't countenance any sort of mock service! Even just for—for quaintness,—even for Christmas quaintness!"
"Mock service?" puzzled Flame. "Bibles?... Oh, I don't want you to preach out of 'em," she hastened perfectly amiably to explain. "All I want them for is to plump-up the chairs.... The seats you see are too low for the dogs.... Oh, I suppose dictionaries would [91] do," she compromised reluctantly. "Only dictionaries are always so scarce."
Obediently the Lay Reader raked the parlor book-cases for "plump-upable" books. ”

“ Not a formal call, of course,—just a—a neighborly greeting at the door? It being Christmas Eve and everything!—And as long as I have to pass right by the house anyway?—There is a lady at the Rattle-Pane House! A—A—what Father would call a Lady Maiden!—Miss—"
"Oh not a real lady, I think," protested her Mother. "Not with all those dogs. No real lady I think would have so many dogs.—It—It isn't sanitary."
"Isn't—sanitary?" cried Flame. "Why Mother, they are the most absolutely—perfectly sanitary dogs you ever saw in your life!" ”

“ To a limpness almost unbelievable the eager little figure wilted down within its blanket-wrapper swathings. "And now ..." deprecated Flame, "Mother has gone and wished me on Aunt Minna instead!" With a sudden revival of enthusiasm two small hands crept out of their big cuffs and clutched her Father by the ears. "Oh Father-Funny!" pleaded Flame. "If you were too old to want it for a 'holler' day and [44] not quite old enough to need it for a holy day ... so that all you asked in the world was just to have it a holly day! Something all bright! Red and green! And tinsel! ”

“ From his slow, stooping poke of the sulky fire the old Butler glanced up with a certain plaintive intentness.
"All dogs is too many," he affirmed. [28]
"Come Christmas time I wishes I was dead."
"Wish you were dead ... at Christmas Time?" cried Flame. Acute shock was in her protest.
"It's the feedin'," sighed the old Butler. "It ain't that I mind eatin' with them on All Saints' Day or Fourth of July or even Sundays. But come Christmas Time it seems like I craves to eat with More Humans.... I got a nephew less'n twenty miles away. He's got cider in his cellar. ”

“ In a single year I've lost health,—money,—most everything I own in the world except my man and my dogs!"
"They're ... good dogs," testified Flame.
"And the Doctor's sent me here for six months," persisted Delcote, "before he'll even hear of my plunging into things again!"
"Six months is a—a good long time," said Flame. "If you'd turn the hems we could make yellow curtains for the parlor in no time at all!"
"W—we?" stammered Delcote. [117]
"M—Mother," said Flame. "... It's a long time since any dogs lived in the Rattle-Pane House." ”

“ And "starting" is by no means the same as arriving. Dragging a sledful of miscellaneous Christmas goods an eighth of a mile over bare ground is not an easy task. She had to make three tugging trips. And each start was delayed by her big gray pussy cat stealing out to try to follow her. And each arrival complicated by the yelpings and leapings and general cavortings of four dogs who didn't see any reason in the world why they shouldn't escape from their forced imprisonment in the shed-yard and prance home with her. ”

“ And by the time you reach an age where you really rather appreciate its being a holy day the chances are that you've got a houseful of racketty youngsters who fairly insist on reverting to the 'holler' day idea again."
"U—m—m," encouraged Flame.
—"When you're little, of course," mused her Father, "you have to spend the day the way your elders want you to!... You crave a Christmas Tree but they prefer stockings! You yearn to skate but they consider the weather better for corn-popping! ”

“ With an impulse purely practical she started for the kitchen. "The [9] season happens to be Christmas time," she suggested bluntly. "Now if you could see your way to make a sermon that smelt like doughnuts and plum-pudding—"
"Doughnuts?" queried her Husband and hurried after her. Supplementing the far, remote Glory-of-God expression in his face, the glory-of-doughnuts shone suddenly very warmly.
Flame at least did not have to be reminded about the Seasons.
"Oh mother!" telephoned Flame almost at once, "It's—so much nearer Christmas than it was half an hour ago! ”

“ A—turkey—or a—or a fur coat—or anything."
"I am—making doughnuts," confided her Mother with the faintest possible taint of asperity.
"O—h," conceded Flame. "And Father's watching them? Then I'll hurry! M—Mother?" deprecated the excited young voice. "You are always so horridly right! Lopsy and Beautiful-Lovely and Blunder-Blot are not Christmasing all alone in the Rattle-Pane House! There is a man with them! Don't tell Father,—he's so nervous about men!" ”

“ So Bertrand Lorello,—who for the cause he served, wouldn't have hesitated an instant probably, to be torn by Hindoo lions,—devoured by South Sea cannibals,—fallen upon by a chapel spire,—trampled to death even at a church rummage sale,—saw no conceivable reason at the moment for being eaten by dogs at a purely social function.
Even groping through a balsam-scented darkness with one hand clasping [83] the thrilly fingers of a lovely young girl, this distaste did not altogether leave him.
"This—this mush that you speak of?" he questioned quite abruptly. ”

“ A Black Velvet Bag surmounted by a Tiger's head stirring strangely in a chair piled high with books!... Seated next to the Black Velvet Bag a Canary as big as a Turkey Gobbler!... A Giraffe stepping suddenly forward with—with dog-paws thrust into his soup plate!... A White Rabbit heavily wreathed in holly rousing cautiously from his cushions!... A Parrot with a twitching black and white short-haired tail!... An [106] empty chair facing the Girl! An empty chair facing the Girl.
"If this is madness," thought Delcote quite precipitously, "I am at least the Master of the Asylum!" ”

“ I'm—" [49]
"When in Doubt do as the Doubters do," suggested Flame's Father quite genially. "Choose the most doubtful doubt on the docket and—Flame's got a pretty level head," he interrupted himself very characteristically.
"No young girl has a level heart," asserted Flame's Mother. "I'm so worried about the Lay Reader."
"Lay Reader?" murmured her Father. Already he had crossed the threshold into the hall and was rummaging through an over-loaded hat rack for his fur coat. "Why, yes," he called back, "I quite forgot to ask. Just what kind of a Christmas is it, Flame, that you want to make?" ”

“ He's had ... misfortunes," he confided darkly. "He travels for 'em same as some folks travels for their healths. Most especially at Christmas Time he travels for his misfortunes! He ..."
"Mr. Delcote?" quickened Flame. "Mr. Delcote?" (Now at last was the mysterious tenancy about to be divulged?)
"All he says," persisted the old Butler. "All he says is 'Now Barret,'—that's me, 'Now Barret I trust your honor to see that the dogs ain't neglected just because it's Christmas. There ain't no reason, Barret', he says, 'why innocent dogs should suffer Christmas just because everybody else does. ”

“ Just books,—illustrated poems usually, very wholesome pickles,—and always a huge motto to recommend, "Peace on Earth, Good Will to Men."—To "Men"?—Why not to Women?—Why not at least to "Dogs?" questioned Flame quite abruptly.
Taken all in all it was not a Christmas Morning of sentiment but a Christmas morning of works! Kitchen works, mostly! Useful, flavorous adventures with a turkey! A somewhat nervous sally with an apple pie! Intermittently, of course, a few experiments with [59] flour paste! A flaire or two with a paint brush! An errand to the attic! ”

“ Her Father being only dreamy could sometimes be diverted from his dreams! But to be 'set' and 'dreamy' both? Absolutely 'set' on being absolutely 'dreamy'? That was Flame!" With renewed tenacity Flame's Mother reverted to Truth as Truth. "Dogs do not [8] take houses!" she affirmed with unmistakable emphasis.
"Eh? What?" jumped her husband. "Dogs? Dogs? Who said anything about dogs?" ”

“ Father," she persisted, "Of all the people you know in the world,—millions would it be?"
"No, call it thousands" corrected her Father.
"Well, thousands," accepted Flame. "Old people, young people, fat people, skinnys, cross people, jolly people?... Did you ever in your life know any one who had ever spent Christmas just the way he wanted to?"
"Why ... no, I don't know that I ever did," considered her Father. With his elbows on the arms of his chair, his slender fingers forked to a lovely Gothic arch above the bridge of his nose, he yielded himself instantly to the reflection. "Why ... ”