Nibsys Christmas | Page 4

rush of smoke and fire.
The clatter of the presses ceased suddenly, to be followed quickly by
the clangor of hurrying fire-bells. With hook and axes the firemen
rushed in; hose was let down through the manholes, and down there in
the depths the battle was fought and won.
The building was saved; but in the midst of the rejoicing over the
victory there fell a sudden silence. From the cellar-way a grimy,
helmeted figure arose, with something black and scorched in his arms.
A tarpaulin was spread upon the snow and upon it he laid his burden,
while the silent crowd made room and word went over to the hospital
for the doctor to come quickly.
Very gently they lifted poor little Nibsy--for it was he, caught in his
berth by a worse enemy than the "cop" or the watchman of the
hay-barge--into the ambulance that bore him off to the hospital cot, too
late.
Conscious only of a vague discomfort that had succeeded terror and
pain, Nibsy wondered uneasily why they were all so kind. Nobody had
taken the trouble to as much as notice him before. When he had thrust
his papers into their very faces they had pushed him roughly aside.
Nibsy, unhurt and able to fight his way, never had a show. Sick and
maimed and sore, he was being made much of, though he had been
caught where the boys were forbidden to go. Things were queer,
anyhow, and----
The room was getting so dark that he could hardly see the doctor's
kindly face, and had to grip his hand tightly to make sure that he was
there; almost as dark as the stairs in the alley he had come down in
such a hurry.
There was the baby now--poor baby--and mother--and then a great
blank, and it was all a mystery to poor Nibsy no longer. For, just as a
wild-eyed woman pushed her way through the crowd of nurses and

doctors to his bedside, crying for her boy, Nibsy gave up his soul to
God.
* * * * *
It was very quiet in the alley. Christmas had come and gone. Upon the
last door a bow of soiled crape was nailed up with two tacks. It had
done duty there a dozen times before, that year.
Upstairs, Nibsy was at home, and for once the neighbors, one and all,
old and young, came to see him.
Even the father, ruffian that he was, offered no objection. Cowed and
silent, he sat in the corner by the window farthest from where the plain
little coffin stood, with the lid closed down.
A couple of the neighbor-women were talking in low tones by the stove,
when there came a timid knock at the door. Nobody answering, it was
pushed open, first a little, then far enough to admit the shrinking form
of a little ragamuffin, the smaller of the two who had stood breathing
peep-holes on the window-pane of the delicatessen store the night
before when Nibsy came along.
He dragged with him a hemlock branch, the leavings from some
Christmas-tree fitted into its block by the grocer for a customer.
"It's from Sante Claus," he said, laying it on the coffin. "Nibsy knows."
And he went out.
Santa Claus had come to Nibsy, after all, in his alley. And Nibsy knew.
[Illustration]

WHAT THE CHRISTMAS SUN SAW IN THE TENEMENTS
The December sun shone clear and cold upon the city. It shone upon
rich and poor alike. It shone into the homes of the wealthy on the

avenues and in the uptown streets, and into courts and alleys hedged in
by towering tenements down town. It shone upon throngs of busy
holiday shoppers that went out and in at the big stores, carrying bundles
big and small, all alike filled with Christmas cheer and kindly messages
from Santa Claus.
It shone down so gayly and altogether cheerily there, that wraps and
overcoats were unbuttoned for the north wind to toy with. "My, isn't it a
nice day?" said one young lady in a fur shoulder-cape to a friend,
pausing to kiss and compare lists of Christmas gifts.
"Most too hot," was the reply, and the friends passed on. There was
warmth within and without. Life was very pleasant under the Christmas
sun up on the avenue.
Down in Cherry Street the rays of the sun climbed over a row of tall
tenements with an effort that seemed to exhaust all the life that was in
them, and fell into a dirty block, half-choked with trucks, with
ash-barrels and rubbish of all sorts, among which the dust was whirled
in clouds upon fitful, shivering blasts that searched every nook and
cranny of the big barracks. They fell upon a little girl, bare-footed and