Christmas Stories Rediscovered. Sarah Orne Jewett
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, and so forth.”
“Good Lord, Ellen,” hastily interrupted her husband, “don’t do that! You’ll have her returning the birthday and Easter presents. It would be worse than ever.”
“Yes; I am afraid that would not do, after all,” said Mrs. Spencer, looking more troubled than before.
Dr. Spencer reached out for the poker and tapped open a lump of soft coal on top of the fire. A blue flame shot up through it, and a little spiral of smoke licked out into the room.
“Ellen,” he said, emphasizing his words with taps of the poker on the grate, “take my advice: cut it short, and just bear it if you do have to take presents from her this year. Carroll Martin is a man I shall never respect again after his course during the last election, and anything is better than carrying on this perfunctory friendship. We no longer see enough of any of them to justify our exchanging presents, and I am sure Mrs. Martin will thank you as much as I shall if you will take the bull by the horns now and be done with it.”
He looked at his wife, but she did not answer. Her eyes were bent upon her sewing, and her expression was unconvinced.
Dr. Spencer set down the poker, took up his paper, and settled himself back in his chair again. He was not one of those who go on and split the board after they have driven home the nail.
“You have my opinion,” he said, and went on reading.
The Spencers and Martins had been, some years before, next-door neighbors. The Martins were then newly married and strangers to the place, and the first Christmas after their arrival, Mrs. Spencer, in the kindness of her heart, had sent over a bunch of flowers, with a friendly greeting, to her young neighbor. Her messenger had returned with Mrs. Martin’s warm thanks, and a pretty sofa-pillow, hastily snatched up and sent to express the little bride’s pleasure and gratitude.
Such a handsome gift, in place of the “thank you” expected, had decidedly taken Mrs. Spencer aback, and when the next Christmas came, she took care to provide a pretty pin-cushion for Mrs. Martin and a dainty cap for the baby who had by that time been added to the family. This occasion found Mrs. Martin also prepared, and she promptly responded with a centerpiece for Mrs. Spencer, an ash-tray for the doctor, and a doll for their little Margaret.
From this time on each year the burden grew. Several children had been added to both families; each one was separately remembered, and, in the old Southern Christmas fashion, presents for the family servants had been added to the list, one at a time, until not only nurse, coachman, and cook had been included, but, as Mrs. Spencer said, the previous Christmas had even brought her a collar for the dog.
During these years both families had moved. Both had built new homes, on the same street, it is true, but a block apart, so that they were no longer near neighbors, and lately the two men had been on opposite sides of a bitter political contest. “Warmth had induced coolness, words had produced silence,” and the relations of the two families had become only formal.
The