Trifles for the Christmas Holidays | Page 5

of which I never knew. She had married,
years before, a worthless kind of a man, who kept a shoestore; but he
became involved, the store was sold out by the sheriff and since then
both were in a manner lost.
John Redfield, though an abrupt man, and rather eccentric, had as kind
a heart as any one I ever knew. He was connected with a newspaper in
the city, and wrote wonderful articles about police courts, that,
somehow, sounded more like sermons than stories. In my early days,

before Gutenberg and his movable types came within the scope of my
knowledge, I believed he printed out the whole edition with a
lead-pencil, and entertained most exalted ideas of his capacity. He had
a passion for giving boys painted boats. I must have received
twenty--all exactly alike--at various outbreaks of his generosity. He had
the queerest way of bestowing favors I almost ever saw. When he
wished to make a boy a present, he shoved it roughly into his pocket,
and then started off as if the house was on fire. What brought up the
subject I do not now remember, but that evening Mrs. Morton persisted
in talking about Clara Hague. She spoke of their childhood, of the old
homestead, of the nutting, the apple-picking, the cider-making, and the
hundred other occupations and amusements of their young life.
She had a vivid power of description, and a charming simplicity in her
choice of words, that entertained even me; but I could see Mr. Redfield
was troubled. He moved restlessly on the lounge, and once drew a
shawl over his face. At last she touched on the shoestore, its doleful
decay and downfall, and the years the unhappy woman had struggled
on. At this he started to go; but there was something in her manner that
detained him. Her tone had been light and chatty before; and, though
she spoke with proper gravity, it was sprightly rather than earnest. I did
not notice any striking change; and yet it seemed suddenly to assume
the gentle impressiveness one sometimes fancies we should hear from
the pulpit.
"Whatever be her troubles, Clara has been a good sister to you. You
were the youngest; and a puny little fellow you were then, with all your
greatness. Many and many a time, in your quarrels with other boys,
have I seen her get into no end of disgrace for defending you. Do you
remember that old log school-house, John? and our dinners under the
trees? What baskets of berries and bags of nuts we gathered in those
woods! Do you remember the little run we used to cross, and the fish
you caught in the pool?
"And oh, John! do you remember that day we started home when it
rained? You had been sick, and commenced to cry. We got under a big
tree; but it was November; the leaves had all blown down, and the rain

beat through the branches. What disconsolate little people we were!
And when you sat down on a flat stone, and declared you'd stay there
and die, don't you remember how Clara went out in the bushes, and,
taking off her little flannel petticoat, put it around your shoulders for a
cloak?"
The strong man quivered; his face convulsed, and the hot tears started
into his eyes.
"YES! I'll be hanged if I don't!"
He clutched up his hat, and was gone in an instant, and the two women,
woman-like, stood sobbing in each other's arms.
The Air.
The thousand-and-one young gentlemen in blue neck-ties, who for a
twelvemonth, in frantic strains, varying from basso profundo to piping
tenor, had proclaimed their entire willingness to "_mourir pour la
patrie_," were engrossed at their shops; innumerable fascinating
trimmers of bonnets, who, like poor little "Dora," religiously believed
the chief end of man consisted in "dancing continually ta la ra, ta la ra,"
sat busily plying the needle, elbow-deep in ribbons; the
consumptive-looking flute-player before the foot-lights trilled out his
spasmodic trickle of melody, and contemplated with melancholy
pleasure the excited audience; the lank danseuse ogled and smirked at it
behind them, and, with passionate gestures of her thin legs, implored its
applause; men, women, and children, of all grades and degrees,
crowded into the murky night; for a day was coming when the youths
of the neck-ties would not agree to mourir on any account; when the
flute-player would cease to be contemplative; when the danseuse would
forget her attenuated extremities; when the whole world, where the
grace of the Redeemer is known, would believe that the chief end of the
hour, at least, consisted in "dancing continually ta la ra, ta la ra."
Shall "The Air" ring with the joyous notes of the carols, or breathe low
and soft with