Santa Clauss Partner | Page 8

he saw was a crowd of fools that impeded his progress. He tried the middle of the street; but the carriages and delivery-wagons were so thick, that he turned off, growling, and took a less frequented thoroughfare, a back street of mean houses and small shops where a poorer class of people dwelt and dealt.
Here, however, he was perhaps even more incommoded than he had been before. This street was, if anything, more crowded than the other and with a more noisy and hilarious throng. Here, instead of fine shops, there were small ones; but their windows were every bit as attractive to the crowds on the street as those Livingstone had left. People of a much poorer class surged in and out of the doors; small gamins, some in ragged overcoats, more in none, gabbled with and shouldered each other boisterously at the windows and pressed their red noses to the frosty panes, to see through the blurred patches made by their warm breath the wondrous marvels within. The little pastry-shops and corner-groceries vied with the toy-shops and confectionaries, and were packed with a population that hummed like bees, the busy murmur broken every now and then by jests and calls and laughter, as the customers squeezed in empty-handed, or slipped out with carefully-wrapped parcels hugged close to their cheery bosoms or carried in their arms with careful pride.
Livingstone finally was compelled to get off the sidewalk again and take to the street. Here, at least, there were no fine carriages to block his way.
As he began to approach a hill, he was aware of yells of warning ahead of him, and, with shouts of merriment, a swarm of sleds began to shoot by him, some with dark objects lying flat on their little stomachs, kicking their heels high in the air; others with small single or double or triple headed monsters seated upright and all screaming at the top of their merry voices. All were unmindful of the falling snow and nipping air, their blood hot with the ineffable fire of youth that flames in the warm heart of childhood, glows in that of youth, and cools only with the cooling brain and chilling pulse.
Before Livingstone could press back into the almost solid mass on the sidewalk he had come near being run down a score of times. He felt that it was an outrage. He fairly flamed with indignation. He, a large taxpayer, a generous contributor to asylums and police funds, a supporter of hospitals,--that he should be almost killed!
He looked around for a policeman--
"Whoop! Look out! Get out the way!" Swish! Swish! Swish! they shot by. Livingstone had to dodge for his life. Of course, no policeman was in sight!
Livingstone pushed his way on to the top of the ascent, and a square further on he found an officer inspecting silently a group of noisy urchins squabbling over the division of two sticks of painted candy. His back was towards the hill from which were coming the shouts of the sliding miscreants.
Livingstone accosted him:
"That sliding, back there, must be stopped. It is a nuisance," he asserted.--It was dangerous, he declared; he himself had almost been struck by one or more of those sleds and if it had run him down it might have killed him.
The officer, after a long look at him, turned silently and walked slowly in the direction of the hill. He moved so deliberately and with such evident reluctance that Livingstone's blood boiled. He hurried after him.
"Here," he said, as he overtook him, "I am going to see that you stop that sliding and enforce the law, or I shall report you for failure to perform your duty. I see your number--268."
"All right, sir. You can do as you please about that," said the officer, rather surlily, but politely.
Livingstone walked close after him to the hilltop. The officer spoke a few words in a quiet tone to the boys who were at the summit, and instantly every sled stopped. Not so the tongues. Babel broke loose. Some went off in silence; others crowded about the officer, expostulating, cajoling, grumbling. It was "the first snow;" they "always slid on that hill;" "it did not hurt anybody;" "nobody cared," etc.
"This gentleman has complained, and you must stop," said the officer.
They all turned on Livingstone with sudden hate.
"Arr-oh-h!" they snarled in concert. "We ain't a-hurtin' him! What's he got to do wid us anyhow!"
One more apt archer than the rest, shouted, "He ain't no gentleman--a gentleman don't never interfere wid poor little boys what ain't a-done him no harm!"
But they stopped, and the more timid or impatient stole off to find new and less inconveniently guarded inclines.
Livingstone passed on. He did not know that the moment he left and the officer turned his back, the whole