Colonel Crocketts Co-operative Christmas | Page 3

are only transients. Why, do you know, I was that lonely I could have stood out in the square like a lonely old cow in the rain, and just mooed for somebody to take me in.
I'd have telegraphed for you and the childern to come to town, but Texas is so far away, and you'd have got here too late, and you couldn't come anyway, being sick, as you wrote me, and one of the kids having malary. How is his blessed self to-day? I hope you're feeling better. Telegraph if you ain't, and I'll take the first train home.
Well, last night I ate a horrible mockery of a Christmas dinner in a deserted restaurant, and it gave me heartburn (in addition to heartache) and a whole brood-stable of nightmares. I went to bed early, and stayed awake late. Gee! that was an awful night.
I tried Philosophy--the next station beyond Despair. I said to myself, "You old fool, why in the name of all that's sensible should you feel so excited about one day more than another?" I wasn't so lonely the day before Christmas, I ain't so lonely to-day, but then I was like a small boy with the mumps and the earache on the Fourth of July. The firecrackers will pop just as lively another day, but--well, the universe was simply throwed all out of gear, like it must have been when Joshua held up the moon--or was it the sun?
You remember reading me once about--I reckon it was Mr. Aldrich's pleasing idea of the last man on earth; everybody killed off by a pestilence or something, and him setting there by his lonely little lonesome; and what would he have done if he had heard his door-bell ring? Well, I reckon he'd have done what I'd have done if I'd met a friend--given one wild whoop, wrapped his arms round his neck, kissed him on both cheeks, and died with a faint gurgle of joy. I'd of been glad to have died so, too.
Finally, I swore that if I ever foresaw myself being corralled again in a strange city on Christmas, I'd put on a sandwich board or something and march up and down the streets with a sign like this:
I'm lonely! I'm homesick for a real Christmas! There must be others. Let's get together! Meet me at the Fountain in Union Square! We'll hang our stockings on the trees. Perhaps some snow will fall in 'em. Come one--Come all! Both great and small!
I bet such a board would stir up a procession of exiles a mile and a half long. And we'd get together and have a good crying match on each other's shoulders, and wring each other's hands, while the band played Old Lang's Sign.
But it's over now. I've lived through the game of Christmas solitaire in a big city, and I feel as relieved as a man just getting out of a dentist's office. He's minus a few molars, and aches considerable, but he's full of a pleasing emptiness.
But let me say right here, and put it in black and white: If I'm ever dragged away from home again on Christmas, I'll take laughing-gas enough for a day and two nights, or I'll take some violent steps to get company, if I have to hire a cayuse and a lariat and rustle Broadway, rounding up a herd of other unbranded stray cattle.
Well, this is a long letter for me, honey, and I will close. Love and kisses to the sweet little kids and to the best wife a fellow ever had.
Your loving
AUSTIN.
P. S. I pulled off the deal all right. The syndicate buys the mine. I get $500,000 in cash and $500,000 in stock, and I start for home in three days. We'll hang up our stockings on New Year's Day.

Between Letters
The Fates accepted Colonel Crockett's challenge, and, by an irresistible syndication of events, forced him to be alone in New York again the very next Christmas. After a series of masterly financial strokes, he had felt rich enough in his two millions to spend a year abroad with his family. A cablegram called him to America early in December, to a directors' meeting. Expecting to return at once, he had left his family in Italy. A legal complication kept him postponing his trip from day to day; and finally an important hearing, in which he was a valued witness, was postponed by the referee--or deferee--till after the holidays. The Colonel saw himself confronted with another Christmas far away from any of his people. The first two days he spent in violent profanity, and in declining invitations which he received from business acquaintances to share their homes. Then he set out to make the occasion memorable. Once more we may leave the account to