Colonel Crocketts Co-operative Christmas | Page 3

That was the way with us-all in New York. The town was full of
lonesome strangers, and we went moping round, stumbling over each
other and not daring to speak.
They call us "transients" here. It's like a common sailor that's lost at sea;

he's only a "casualty." So us poor, homeless dogs in New York 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