Mrs. Budlongs Christmas Presents | Page 9

focus of her former ambition. Then she felt shame at her unpreparedness. She caught the evening paper out of her husband's lap to find the date. November ninth and not a Christmas thing begun. Yet a few days and the news-stands would have apprised her that Christmas was coming, for by the middle of November all the magazines put on their holly and their chromos of the three Magi and their Santa Clauses, as women put on summer straw hats at Easter.
Mrs. Budlong's hands sought and wrung each other as if in mutual reproach. They had been pouring tea and passing wafers when they should have been Dorcassing at their Christmas tasks. It had been left for her husband of all people to warn her that her own special Bacchanal was imminent.
If he had been a day later, the neighbors would have anticipated him as well as the magazines. The Christmas idea seemed to strike the whole town at once. Mrs. Budlong became the victim of her own classic device of pretending to let slip a secret. The townswomen shamelessly turned her own formula against her.
Mrs. Detwiller met her at church and said:
"Yesterday morning at eleven I had the most curious presentiment, my dear. I remember the hour so exactly because I've been making it a rule to begin work on your Christmas present every morning at-- Oh, but I didn't inTend to let you know. No, dearie, I won't tell you what it is. But I can't help believing it's Just what you'll need in New York."
Myra Eppley, with whom Mrs. Budlong had never exchanged Christmas presents, at all, but with whom an intimacy had sprung up since Mrs. Budlong came into the reputation of her money--Myra Eppley had the effrontery to call up on the telephone and say:
"Would you mind telling me, my dear, the shade of wall paper you're going to have in your New York parlor, because I'm making you the daintiest little--well, no matter, but will you tell me?"
Poor Mrs. Budlong almost swooned from the telephone. She did not know what the color of her wall paper would be in New York. She did not know that she would ever have wall paper in New York. She only knew that Myra Eppley, too, was calling her "my dear." Myra Eppley also was going to give her a Christmas present. And would have to be given one.
Mrs. Budlong had received fair warning, but she felt about as grateful as a wayfarer feels to the rattlesnake that whizzes "Make r-r-r-ready for the corrroner-r-r."
Next, young Mrs. Chur (Editha Cinnamon as was, for she had finally landed Mr. Chur in spite of the accident--or because of it) called up to say:
"Oh, my dear, my husband wants to know what brand of cigars your husband smokes; and would you tell me, dearie--it's rather personal, but--what size bath-slippers you wear?"
When Sally Swezey came to the Progressive Euchre skirmish at Mrs. Budlong's she noted with joy that her hint had borne fruit. The prizes were indeed of solid gold. Mr. Budlong did not learn it till the first of the following month when the bill came in from Jim Henderson's jewelry store.
As if she had not done enough in forcing solid gold prizes on Mr. Budlong, Sally had to say:
"I'm just dying to see your back parlor, my dear, this next Christmas afternoon. It has always been a sight for sore eyes; but this Christmas it will be a perfect wonder, for I do declare everybody in town is going to send you something nice."
This conviction was already chilling Mrs. Budlong's marrow. Of old she would have rejoiced at the golden triumph, but now she could only realize that if everybody in Carthage sent her something nice, it was because everybody in Carthage expected something nicer. And her Christmas crops were hopelessly backward. At a time when she should be half done, she could not even begin. She had not tatted or smeared or hammered a thing.

VI
DESPAIR AND AN IDEA
Days and days went by in a stupor of dull hopelessness. Thanksgiving came and the Budlong turkey might as well have been a crow. In desperation she decided to make a tentative exploration of the shops now burgeoning with Christmas splendor; every window a spasm of gewgaws. Since she had no time to make, she must buy.
The length of her list sent her to the cheaper counters, but she was not permitted to browse among them. At Strouther and Streckfuss's, Mr. Strouther came up and said with reeking unctuousness:
"Vat is Mees Bootlonk doink down here amonkst all this tresh? Come see our importet novelties."
And he led her to a region where the minimum price was MBBA-BDJA, which meant that it cost 12.25 and could be safely marked down to 23.75.
She eluded him and