Nibsys Christmas | Page 3

it open and went in.
A bare and cheerless room; a pile of rags for a bed in the corner,
another in the dark alcove, miscalled bedroom; under the window a
broken cradle and an iron-bound chest, upon which sat a sad-eyed
woman with hard lines in her face, peeling potatoes in a pan; in the
middle of the room a rusty stove, with a pile of wood, chopped on the
floor alongside. A man on his knees in front fanning the fire with an
old slouch hat. With each breath of draught he stirred, the crazy old
pipe belched forth torrents of smoke at every point. As Nibsy entered,
the man desisted from his efforts and sat up glaring at him. A villainous
ruffian's face, scowling with anger.

"Late ag'in!" he growled; "an' yer papers not sold. What did I tell yer,
brat, if ye dared----"
"Tom! Tom!" broke in the wife, in a desperate attempt to soothe the
ruffian's temper.
"The boy can't help it, an' it's Christmas-eve. For the love o'----"
"To thunder with yer rot and with yer brat!" shouted the man, mad with
the fury of passion. "Let me at him!" and, reaching over, he seized a
heavy knot of wood and flung it at the head of the boy.
Nibsy had remained just inside the door, edging slowly toward his
mother, but with a watchful eye on the man at the stove. At the first
movement of his hand toward the woodpile he sprang for the stairway
with the agility of a cat, and just dodged the missile. It struck the door,
as he slammed it behind him, with force enough to smash the panel.
Down the three flights in as many jumps Nibsy went, and through the
alley, over barrels and barriers, never stopping once till he reached the
street, and curses and shouts were left behind.
In his flight he had lost his unsold papers, and he felt ruefully in his
pocket as he went down the street, pulling his rags about him as much
from shame as to keep out the cold.
Four pennies were all he had left after his Christmas treat to the two
little lads from the barracks; not enough for supper or for a bed; and it
was getting colder all the time.
On the sidewalk in front of the notion store a belated Christmas party
was in progress. The children from the tenements in the alley and
across the way were having a game of blindman's-buff, groping blindly
about in the crowd to catch each other. They hailed Nibsy with shouts
of laughter, calling to him to join in.
"We're having Christmas!" they yelled.

Nibsy did not hear them. He was thinking, thinking, the while turning
over his four pennies at the bottom of his pocket.
Thinking if Christmas was ever to come to him, and the children's
Santa Claus to find his alley where the baby slept within reach of her
father's cruel hand. As for him, he had never known anything but blows
and curses. He could take care of himself. But his mother and the
baby----. And then it came to him with shuddering cold that it was
getting late, and that he must find a place to sleep.
He weighed in his mind the merits of two or three places where he was
in the habit of hiding from the "cops" when the alley got to be too hot
for him.
There was the hay-barge down by the dock, with the watchman who
got drunk sometimes, and so gave the boys a chance. The chances were
at least even of its being available on Christmas-eve, and of Santa
Claus having thus done him a good turn after all.
Then there was the snug berth in the sandbox you could curl all up in.
Nibsy thought with regret of its being, like the hay-barge, so far away
and to windward too.
Down by the printing-offices there were the steam-gratings, and a
chance corner in the cellars, stories and stories underground, where the
big presses keep up such a clatter from midnight till far into the day.
As he passed them in review, Nibsy made up his mind with sudden
determination, and, setting his face toward the south, made off down
town.
* * * * *
The rumble of the last departing news-wagon over the pavement, now
buried deep in snow, had died away in the distance, when, from out of
the bowels of the earth there issued a cry, a cry of mortal terror and
pain that was echoed by a hundred throats.

From one of the deep cellar-ways a man ran out, his clothes and hair
and beard afire; on his heels a breathless throng of men and boys;
following them, close behind, a