Kate Langley Bosher

“ For the giving of joy the selection of a pair of shining slippers, a blue satin sash, and a string of amber beads were eminently suitable, however, and, watching, Van Landing saw her eyes gleam over the precious possessions she was supposedly buying for some one else, a child of her own age, and he made no objection to the selections made.
"Even if she don't wear them she will have them." And Carmencita drew a long, deep sigh of satisfaction. "It's so nice to know you have got something you can peep at every now and then. It's like eating when you're hungry. ”

“ With a change of expression Carmencita sprang to her feet and, hands clasped behind her back, she stood erect, her eyes blazing with indignation. "If you don't tell him where you are, don't let him come, I'll think it's all just make-believe and put on, your coming and doing for people you don't really and truly know, and doing nothing for those you do, and letting the ones you love best be lonely and miserable and having Christmas all by themselves when they're starving hungry for you. ”

“ Leaving the table where for a minute she had jumbled needles and thread and scissors and buttons in the broken basket, she walked slowly over to the tiny mirror hung above a chest of drawers, and on tiptoes nodded at the reflection before her—nodded and spoke to it.
"You're a sinner, all right, Carmencita Bell, and there's no natural goodness in you. You hate hideousness, and poorness, and other people's cast-offs, and emptiness in your stomach, and living on the top floor with crying babies and a drunken father underneath, and counting every stick of wood before you use it. ”

“ Aren't you ever going to get married, Miss Frances?"
"I hardly think I will." Frances Barbour got up and pushed the machine against the wall. "The trouble about getting married is marrying the right man. One so often doesn't. I wouldn't like to make a mistake." Again she smiled.
"Don't see how you could make a mistake. Isn't there some way you can tell?"
"My dear Carmencita!" Stooping, the child's face was lifted and kissed. "I'm not a bit interested in men or marriage. They belong to—to a long, long time ago. ”

“ His mother's dead, but he believed in her. She was the only thing he did believe in. A man who don't believe in his mother—Oh, my precious mother!"
With a trembling movement the little locket was taken from the box and opened and the picture in it kissed passionately; then, without warning, the child crumpled up and hot tears fell fast over the quivering face. "I do want you, my mother! Everybody wants a mother at Christmas, and I haven't had one since I was seven. Father tries to fill my stocking, but it isn't a mother-stocking, and I just ache and ache to—to have one like you'd fix. ”

“ He can slice the ham and cheese. There must be plenty. Boys are hollow. Frances, have you seen my scissors?"
Out of what seemed hopeless confusion and chaotic jumbling, out of excited coming and going, and unanswered questions, and slamming of doors, and hurried searchings, order at last evolved, and, feeling very much as if he'd been in a football match, Van Landing surveyed the rooms with a sense of personal pride in their completeness. ”

“ Tell me"—Carmencita leaned forward and, arms again crossed on Van Landing's knees, looked anxiously in his face—"what does a man say when he's really and truly courting? I mean a nice man. When the Real one comes, the Right one—what will he say? I'm just about there, and I don't know how to go on."
"I wish I could tell you." Van Landing leaned back in his chair and, taking out his watch again, looked at it. "I shouldn't dare to try to write a novel, consequently—"
"I'll try anything while I'm waiting to go to work." Carmencita sat back dejectedly. "Is a book a novel because it has love in it?" ”

“ In the morning he would find it, but he did not want to make demands upon the usual sources for help until he had exhausted all other means of redeeming his folly in not learning Carmencita's full name and address before he left her. Was a man's whole life to be changed, to be made or unmade, by whimsical chance or by stupid blunder? In the gray dawn of a new day he reached his home and went to bed for a few hours' sleep. ”

“ I'd much rather love people, though. I love to love! It makes you feel so nice and warm and homey. If I had a house I'd have everybody I know—I mean all the nice everybodies—to spend Christmas with me. Isn't it funny that at Christmas something in you gets so lonely for—for— I don't know what for, exactly, but it's something you don't mind so much not having at other times."
Carmencita's arms opened to their full length, then circled slowly, and her hands crossed around her neck. ”

“ She stopped, smoothed her rumpled dress, and shook back the long loose curls which had fallen over her face. "I must be getting sorry for myself. If I am I ought to be spanked. I can't spank, but I can dance. If you don't head it off quick it goes to your liver. I'll head!"
With a swift movement Carmencita sprang across the room and from the mantel took down a once beribboned but now faded and worn tambourine. "You'd rather cry," she said, under her breath, "but you sha'n't cry. I won't let you. Dance! Dance! Dance!" ”

“ It was humanity's home-time, and he had no home. Why—
"An ass that brays is wiser than the man who asks what can't be answered," he said, under his breath. "For the love of Heaven, quit it! Why-ing in a man is as inexcusable as whining in a woman. There's my car—crowded, of course!"
For some minutes longer he waited for a car on which there was chance to get a foothold, then, buttoning his overcoat, put his hands in his pockets and began the walk to his club. The season had been mild so far, but a change was coming, and the two days left for Christmas shopping would doubtless be stormy ones. ”

“ Van Landing turned so sharply that the child jumped. "Who did you say?"
"Miss Barbour." The eyes which were so like those he could not forget were raised to his. "If you knew Miss Barbour she could tell you of plenty of people to make Christmas for. She's living right now with Mother McNeil, who isn't really anybody's mother, but just everybody's. But she don't live there all the time. Most of her people are dead or married and don't need her, so she came to Mother McNeil to see how children down there live. ”

“ The Beckwith babies are awful sick. I guess it would be a good thing if they were to die. They are always having colic and cramps and croup, and they've got a coughing mother and a lazy father; but they won't die. Some babies never will. Did you know Mr. Rheinhimer had been on another spree?" Carmencita, feet fastened in the rounds of her chair, elbows on knees, and chin in the palms of her hand, nodded affirmatively at the face in front of her. ”

“ For a moment he did not speak lest his voice be as unsteady as his hands, but, taking out his watch, he looked at it, then put it back with fumbling fingers.
"Her first name—Miss Barbour's first name," he said, and the dryness of his throat made his words a little indistinct. "What is it?"
With mouth rounded into a little ball, Carmencita blew on her stiff finger-tips. "Frances," she said, and first one foot and then the other was stamped for purpose of warmth. "The damanarkist says God made her, but the devil has more to do with most women than anybody else. He don't like women. ”

“ The troubled voice was of a strange quality for so shabbily clothed a body, and in the eyes that saw not, and which were lifted to Van Landing's, was sudden terror. "She believes all people to be her friends. I cannot always be with her, and some day—"
"But, Father, you said that whoever didn't have any friends must be our friend, because—because that's all we can be—just friends. And he hasn't any. I mean anybody to make Christmas for. ”

“ Van Landing followed her.
"The boy," he said. "Will you give him this and tell him if the note is delivered to Miss Barbour personally there will be more when he comes back?" He held out his hand.
As if not seeing aright, Carmencita looked closely at what was held toward her, then up in Van Landing's face. "You must have plenty of money, if you haven't any friends," she said, and in her voice was faint suspicion. "Noodles can't have that. He'd never go anywhere for me again if he got that much." Her hand waved his away. "When he comes back, if you'll give him a quarter he'll stand on his head. ”

“ There was a good deal of nonsense in this curious custom of once a year getting on a giving jag, which was about what Christmas had degenerated into, and if something could prevent the dementia that possessed many people at this season it should be welcomed. It had often puzzled him, the behavior of the human family at this so-called Christian holiday in which tired people were overworked, poor people bought what they couldn't afford, and the rich gave unneeded things to the rich and were given unwanted ones in return. The hands of all people—all places—had become outstretched. ”

“ All glow and eagerness, but much too thin and not half enough color, and the hat over the loose brown curls was straw.
"I don't think it will be long." His voice was cheerfully decisive. "That kind is usually soon over. Most of a wedding's time is taken in getting ready for it. Did you say your father was over there?"
The child's head nodded. "They have a harp, so I know they are nice people. Father can't give lessons any more, because he can't see but just a teensy, weensy bit when the sun is shining. ”

“ A large piece of brown paper was waved in the air. "It's the one in which the Princess Patricia gets ready to die because she hears her sweetheart making love to some one else, and then she comes to her senses and makes him marry the other girl so they can live miserable ever after, and the Princess goes about doing good like Miss Frances. But I'm going to marry her to somebody before I'm through—I'm—"
"You believe in marriage, then." Van Landing smiled, and, stooping, picked up several sheets of paper evidently torn from a blank-book. ”

“ Every day is just the same sort of sameness, and I get so mad-tired of cooking and cleaning and mending, before school and after school and nights, that if something don't happen soon I'm afraid Father will find out what a pretending person I am, and he mustn't find. It's been much better since I knew Miss Frances. I'm awful much obliged to You for letting me know her, but she isn't permanent, Mother McNeil says, and may go away soon. I'm going to try to have a grand Christmas and be as nice as I can to Mrs. Rheinhimer, but she's so lazy and dirty it's hard not to tell her so. ”

“ As long as he entertained he was entertained in return, and for some time after he stopped he still received invitations of many sorts, but in cynical realization of the unsatisfactoriness of his manner of life he had given it up, and in its place had come nothing to answer the hunger of his heart for comradeship and human cheer. His opinion of life had become unhealthy. As an experience for which one is not primarily responsible it had to be endured, but out of it he had gotten little save what men called success ”

“ She stopped. "She hasn't any new clothes. A lady can't get married without new clothes, can she? And she won't have time to get any on Christmas eve. Whether she'll do it or not, you'll have to make her, Mr. Van, or you'll lose her again. You've—got—to—just—make—her!"
Carmencita's long slender forefinger made a jab in Van Landing's direction, and her head nodded with each word uttered. But before he could answer, Mother McNeil, with breakfast on a tray, was in the room and Carmencita was out. ”

“ There isn't much you can do in this world, Carmencita, but you can dance. You've got to do it, too, every time you feel sorry for yourself. I wonder if I could see Miss Frances before I go for Father? I must see her. Must! Those Beckwith babies have got the croup, and I want to ask her if she thinks it's awful piggy in me to put all my money, or 'most all, in Father's present. And I want to ask her—I could ask Miss Frances things all night. Maybe the reason I'm not a thankful person is I'm so inquiring. I expect to spend the first hundred years after I get to heaven asking questions. ”

“ Quickly they worked, and greater and greater grew the confusion of the continually appearing boxes and bundles, and, knee-deep, Mother McNeil surveyed them, hands on her hips, and once or twice she brushed her eyes.
"It's always the way, my son. If you trust people they will not fail you. When we learn how to understand there will be less hate and more help in the world. Jenkins, bring that barrel of apples and box of oranges over here and get a knife for Mr. Van Landing to cut the bread for the sandwiches. ”

“ Take off your coat. Is it cold out?"
"Getting cold." The heavy coat was laid on one chair, and Carmencita, taking up a half-made gingham dress from another, sat in it and laid the garment in her lap. "I didn't know you knew how to sew."
"I don't." The girl at the machine laughed. "Those Simcoe children didn't have a dress to change in, and I'm practising on some skirts and waists for them. Every day I'm finding out something else I don't know how to do. I seem to have been taught a good many things there is no special need of knowing, and very few I can make use of down here." ”

“ She stopped for breath, and Van Landing, stooping, lifted Carmencita's face and kissed it.
"You are my dear friend, Carmencita." His voice, as his hands, was a bit shaky. "I, too, am very glad—and grateful. Will you ask her to come, ask her to let me see her? I cannot wait any longer."
"You'll have to." Carmencita's eyes were big and blue in sudden seriousness. "The Little Big Sisters have their tree to-night, and she's got a million trillion things to do to-day, and she's gone out. She's awful glad you're better, though. ”