A Little Book for Christmas | Page 8

at all for him to learn to love her. He stared at her a moment. He bent to kiss her and then stopped. He might awaken her. It is always best for the children of the very poor to sleep. He who sleeps dines, runs the Spanish proverb. He turned and kissed the little ragged stockings instead, and then he went out. He was going to play--was it Santa Claus, indeed?
IV
The strange, illogical, ironical god of chance, or was it Providence acting through some careless maid, had left an area window unlocked in the biggest and newest house on the avenue. Any house would have been easy for "Crackerjack" if he had possessed the open sesame of his kit of burglar's tools, but he had not had a jimmy in his hand since he was caught with one and sent to Sing Sing. He had examined house after house, trusting to luck as he wandered on, and, lo! fortune favoured him.
The clock in a nearby church struck the hour of two. The areaway was dark. No one was abroad. He plunged down the steps, opened the window and disappeared. No man could move more noiselessly than he. In the still night he knew how the slightest sounds are magnified. He had made none as he groped his way through the back of the house, arriving at last in a room which he judged to be the library. Then, after listening and hearing nothing, he ventured to turn the button of a side light in a far corner of the room.
He was in a large apartment, beautifully furnished. Books and pictures abounded, but these did not interest him, although if he had made further examination he might have found things worthy of his attention even there. It so happened that the light bracket to which he had blundered, or had been led, was immediately over a large wall safe. Evidently it had been placed there for the purpose of illuminating the safe door. His eyes told him that instantly. This was greater fortune than he expected. A wall safe in a house like that must contain things of value.
Marking the position of the combination knob, he turned out the light and waited again. The quiet of the night continued unbroken. A swift inspection convinced him that the lock was only an ordinary combination. With proper--or improper--tools he could have opened it easily. Even without tools, such were his delicately trained ear and his wonderfully trained fingers that he thought he could feel and hear the combination. He knelt down by the knob and began to turn it slowly, listening and feeling for the fall of the tumblers. Several times he almost got it, only to fail at the end, but by repeated trials and unexampled patience, his heart beating like a trip-hammer the while, he finally mastered the combination and opened the safe door.
In his excitement when he felt the door move he swung it outward sharply. It had not been used for some time evidently and the hinges creaked. He checked the door and listened again. Was he to be balked after so much success? He was greatly relieved at the absence of sound. It was quite dark in the room. He could see nothing but the safe. He reached his hand in and discovered it was filled with bulky articles covered with some kind of cloth, silver evidently.
He decided that he must have a look and again he switched on the light. Yes, his surmise had been correct. The safe was filled with silver. There was a small steel drawer in the middle of it. He had a broad bladed jack-knife in his pocket and at the risk of snapping the blade he forced the lock and drew out the drawer. It was filled with papers. He lifted the first one and stood staring at it in astonishment, for it was an envelope which bore his name, written by a hand which had long since mouldered away in the dust of a grave.
V
Before he could open the envelope, there broke on his ear a still small voice, not that of conscience, not that of God; the voice of a child--but does not God speak perhaps as often through the lips of childhood as in any other way--and conscience, too?
"Are you Santa Claus?" the voice whispered in his ear.
"Crackerjack" dropped the paper and turned like a flash, knife upraised in his clenched hand, to confront a very little girl and a still smaller boy staring at him in open-eyed astonishment, an astonishment which was without any vestige of alarm. He looked down at the two and they looked up at him, equal bewilderment on both sides.
"I sought dat Santy Claus tame down de chimney," said the younger of the twain,