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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Jimsy, by Leona Dalrymple
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Jimsy
+       The Christmas Kid
+
+Author: Leona Dalrymple
+
+Illustrator: Charles Guischard
+
+Release Date: February 18, 2009 [EBook #28110]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JIMSY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Annie McGuire
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Jimsy
+
+The Christmas Kid
+
+
+By
+
+Leona Dalrymple
+
+Author of "The Lovable Meddler," "Diane
+of the Green Van," "Uncle Noah's
+Christmas Party," etc.
+
+
+Decorations by
+Charles Guischard
+
+
+New York
+Robert M. McBride & Company
+1915
+
+
+Copyright, 1915, by
+Robert M. McBride & Co.
+Published October, 1915
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+  CHAPTER                                                             PAGE
+
+     I The Invasion                                                      9
+
+    II The Biscuit Link                                                 19
+
+   III The Chain Grows                                                  27
+
+    IV The Chain Clanks                                                 38
+
+     V The Proving                                                      46
+
+    VI The Triumph                                                      51
+
+   VII The Downfall                                                     55
+
+  VIII The Chain is Locked                                              61
+
+
+
+
+Jimsy
+
+The Christmas Kid
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+I
+
+THE INVASION
+
+
+His name was Jimsy and he took it for granted that you liked him. That
+made things difficult from the very start--that and the fact that he
+arrived in the village two days before Christmas strung to such a
+holiday pitch of expectation that, if you were a respectable,
+bewhiskered first citizen like Jimsy's host, you felt the cut-and-dried
+dignity of a season which unflinching thrift had taught you to pare of
+all its glittering non-essentials, threatened by his bubbling air of
+faith in something wonderful to happen.
+
+He had arrived at twilight, just as the first citizen was about to read
+his evening paper, and he had made a great deal of noise, yelling back
+at old Austin White, whose sleigh had conveyed him from the station to
+the house, a "S'long, Uncle!" pregnant with the friendliness of a
+conversational ride. He had scraped away his snow-heels with a somewhat
+sustained noise, born perhaps of shyness, and now, as he stood in the
+center of the prim, old-fashioned room, a thin, eager youngster not too
+warmly clad for the bite of the New England wind, Abner Sawyer felt with
+a sense of shock that this city urchin whom Judith had promised to
+"Christmas," detracted, in some ridiculous manner, from the
+respectability of the room. He was an inharmonious note in its staid
+preciseness. Moreover, it was evident from the frank friendliness of his
+dark, gray eyes that he was perniciously of that type who frolic through
+a frosty, first-citizen aura of informality and give and accept
+friendship as a matter of course.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"What--what is your name?" asked the first citizen, peering over his
+spectacles. He wished that Judith's Christmas protégé was not so thin
+and a trifle larger.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Jimsy," answered the boy. "An' Specks, he's me chum; he goes to Mister
+Middleton's, next door."
+
+Specks and Jimsy! The first citizen helplessly cleared his throat and
+summoned Judith.
+
+She came in a spotless apron no whiter than her hair. She was
+spare--Aunt Judith Sawyer--spare and patient as the wife of a provident
+man may well be who sees no need for servants, and her primness was of a
+gentler, vaguer sort than that of Abner Sawyer. Jimsy glanced up into
+her sweet, tired face and his eager eyes claimed her with a bewildering
+smile of welcome. Then because Jimsy's experience with clean aprons and
+trimly parted hair was negligible almost to the point of non-existence,
+it became instantly imperative that he should polish the toe of one worn
+shoe with the sole of the other and study the result and Aunt Judith
+with furtive interest.
+
+"Judith," said the first citizen, not wholly at his ease,
+"Mr.--er--ah--Mr. Jimsy has arrived."
+
+Jimsy snickered.
+
+"Naw, naw, nix!" he said. "Jimsy's the handle. I'm a stray, I am. Hain't
+got no folks. Mom Dorgan says ye have to have folks to have a
+bunch-name. I'm the Christmas kid."
+
+"To be sure you are," said Aunt Judith gently, "to be sure. And where
+are your things?"
+
+Jimsy's thin little face reddened.
+
+"Hain't only got one rig," he mumbled, "an' that warn't fitten to wear.
+Mom Dorgan borried these duds fur me. She--she's awful good that way
+when she's sober."
+
+There was wistful eagerness in his face to do his best by the one friend
+who helped him.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Quite unconscious of the scandalized flutter in this quiet room whose
+oval portraits of ancestral Sawyers might well have tumbled down at the
+notion of any one being anything but sober, the boy moved closer to the
+fire as if the ride had chilled him.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Gee!" he said with a long, quivering breath, "ain't that a fire, now,
+ain't it!" and because his keen young eyes could not somehow be evaded,
+Abner Sawyer accepted the responsibility of the reply and said hastily
+that it was. Then feeling his dignity imperilled in the presence of
+Judith, though why he could not for the life of him explain, he moved
+forward a chair for the Christmas guest and returned to his paper.
+
+Aunt Judith went back to a region of tinkling china and humming kettle.
+The room became quiet enough for any one to read, but the first citizen
+somehow could not read. He was ridiculously conscious of that tense
+little figure by the fire with the disturbingly friendly eyes. How on
+earth could a boy be noisy who was absolutely quiet? Yet his very
+presence seemed to clamor--the clamor of an inherent sociability
+repressed with difficulty.
+
+Jimsy glanced at the checkerboard window beyond which snowy hills lay
+beneath a sunset afterglow.
+
+"Gee whiz!" he burst forth. "_Ain't_ the snow white!"
+
+The first citizen jumped--much as one may jump when he has waited in
+nerve-racking suspense for a pistol shot. The boy had done exactly what
+he had expected him to do--broken that sacred ante-prandial hour with
+the Lindon _Evening News_ which Judith had not broken this twenty years.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Snow," he said discouragingly, for all he had determined to ignore the
+remark, "snow is always white."
+
+Jimsy shook his head.
+
+"Naw," he said. "N'York snow's gray an' dirty. Specks said the snow we
+seen on the hills from the train winder was Christmas card snow, and
+with that the minister he up an' tells Specks an' me 'bout reg'lar
+old-fashioned country Christmases, fire like this an' Christmas trees
+an'--an' sleigh-bells an' gifts an' wreaths an' skatin' an'
+holly--Gee--"
+
+"That," said Abner Sawyer with cold finality, "will be quite enough."
+
+"Sure," agreed Jimsy. "A Christmas like that 'snuff fur any kid."
+
+Irritably conscious that his reproof had been misinterpreted, the first
+citizen riveted his gaze upon the Lindon _Evening News_. But he could
+not read. Jimsy's irreverent air of friendliness was not the only
+disturbing factor in his Christmasing. Jimsy, plainly, was cherishing
+expectations.
+
+Conscious-driven, Abner Sawyer laid aside his paper.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"James," he began primly, "I must take this occasion to inform you that
+Mrs. Sawyer and I spend Christmas quietly--very quietly. We have never
+had a Christmas tree, and personally I consider that holly is most
+suitable and decorative where Nature planted it. Christmas," finished
+Mr. Sawyer, slightly disconcerted by Jimsy's attentive stare, "Christmas
+is merely a day and a dinner. Let the frivolous make of it an orgy of
+sentimentality if they will."
+
+Jimsy's face fell.
+
+"Gee!" he said, "your Christmas ain't just an extra Sunday, is it?"
+
+Shocked, Abner Sawyer glinted over the tops of his glasses.
+
+"No," he said with an effort, "it--it is somewhat different."
+
+"How's it different?"
+
+"I"--the first citizen froze--"I hardly know."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"What d'ye have that ye don't have Sundays?"
+
+"I--I believe it's turkey," conceded Mr. Sawyer desperately, and feeling
+his dignity hopelessly compromised by a dialogue of such pronounced
+informality, returned to his paper.
+
+"Gee!" said Jimsy, with a sigh of relief, "that's mos' enuff itself to
+make a Christmas. Hain't never tasted turkey." He was silent a minute,
+in which the clock ticked loudly. It was purple now beyond the
+old-fashioned panes and the lamp seemed brighter. Jimsy's shrill young
+voice broke the quiet, as it would, of course, be sure to do.
+
+"Say," he said kindly, "don't you worry none about that there Christmas
+tree an' no holly. We'll have a thump-walloper of a day, anyhow!"
+
+It is conceivable that Abner Sawyer's experience with thump-wallopers
+had been limited. There was something in the boy's words, however, that
+brought his gaze over the top of his spectacles again and over his
+paper. It was disconcerting to note that Jimsy still bristled with
+faith and friendliness and cheerful expectation.
+
+"My remark," he said coldly, "about the absence of a tree and holly was
+a statement--not an apology."
+
+"Don't get ye," admitted Jimsy. "Come again." And there was danger of a
+mutual dead-lock of comprehension. Aunt Judith saved the day. Arriving
+in the doorway with a flutter, she said that supper was ready and that
+James had better wash his face and hands. And James, who was Jimsy,
+meeting Aunt Judith's gentle eyes, turned scarlet, and stumbling to his
+feet, he stepped, en route, upon the stately toe of Lindon's pride.
+
+"Gee!" he burst forth contritely. "I'm awful sorry, honest Injun I am.
+Spoiled yer shine, didn't I? An' it was a beaut, too!"
+
+Could even a first citizen rebuke such eager apology? Better to stay
+within the certain shelter of a chilling silence.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Abner Sawyer rose, but even as he did so his world of law and order
+seemed to rock in chaos about his feet. He was going out to supper--and
+he had not read a single line in the Lindon _Evening News_!
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+II
+
+THE BISCUIT LINK
+
+It was at supper that the terrible realization came to Abner Sawyer that
+Jimsy liked everything and _every one_ rather too well. He liked the ham
+and he liked the biscuits, he accepted alarming quantities of marmalade
+with utter confidence in his digestion; his round eyes swept every nook
+of the prim old room and marveled at old-fashioned china and silver that
+might have come over in the _Mayflower_, and then again might not, and
+he continued irreverently unaware that the first citizen was president
+of the Lindon Bank and therefore not a person to be liked
+indiscriminately by urchins. Thanks to something in Aunt Judith's eyes,
+furtively concessional to boyhood, Jimsy had mislaid what little
+constraint and shyness he had had at first. His at-homeness might be
+gauged at a glance by the way he gazed at the biscuits.
+
+"Dear me," said Aunt Judith, glancing from Jimsy to the biscuits to see
+which most threatened the other, "I--I scarcely think--I hardly know.
+Abner?"
+
+Time, Abner, now to impress this urchin once for all with a show of
+power in terms he can understand!
+
+Mr. Sawyer settled the trivial question of biscuits with dignity.
+
+"James," he said. "You may have just _one_ more biscuit."
+
+And Aunt Judith nodded:
+
+"Just as you say, my dear!" as she had been nodding effasively for
+thirty years.
+
+Jimsy's eyes were very grateful and it came over the first citizen with
+sickening conviction that Jimsy, misinterpreting again, had regarded the
+biscuit as an overture instead of a show of power. Ridiculous indeed to
+have thrown about your neck the unwelcome chain of a boy's regard and
+then unintentionally to cement that chain--by a biscuit!
+
+Abner Sawyer departed hastily for his lamp, his fire and his paper.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Jimsy followed Aunt Judith to the kitchen and here, in the shining
+quiet of an old-fashioned kitchen whose spotless rows of pans and its
+rocker by the window reflected nothing of first citizenship, the
+memory-making mystery of child and woman in a homely setting drew taut
+an age-old chord of sympathy. Out of the hum of the kettle and the
+fire-shadows of the grate it came, out of the winter wind that rattled
+the checkerpaned windows--that eternal something that is only given to
+women to understand. Jimsy did not know why Aunt Judith smiled or why
+the smile made his throat hurt a little. He only knew by her eyes that
+she liked him and that was enough.
+
+"Aunt Judith," he blurted, "lemme--aw, lemme wipe your dishes."
+
+But Aunt Judith, with the wisdom of women, knew that the best-behaved
+china is perversely given to leaping without warning out of the hands of
+any boy, to his utter consternation, and she patted him on the back.
+
+"Bless your heart, Jimsy," she said, "there are so few I can do them
+myself in no time."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Jimsy!--not James! Jimsy felt that he must do something for Aunt Judith
+Sawyer or his throat would burst. So finding one leg at liberty, he
+furtively kicked the leg of the stove and hurt his toe, even as his eyes
+fell upon a depleted stock of kindlings in the wood-box.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Well, then," he burst out in a glow of good-will, "lemme--lemme take
+Uncle Ab's job to-night an' get the wood."
+
+Aunt Judith's horrified glance made him redden uncomfortably.
+
+"Jimsy," she whispered hurriedly, "you--you must never--never call Mr.
+Sawyer--Uncle Ab. Nobody does."
+
+"But," mumbled the boy, "ye--ye said folks call ye Aunt Judith,
+an'--an'--"
+
+"It--it's different," faltered Aunt Judith. "I--I'm nobody in
+particular. Mr. Sawyer's a bank president, Jimsy, and I--I always get
+the wood myself." She opened the door and pointed to a woodpile
+glimmering out of the darkness with a rim of snow. "The kindlings are
+split and piled in the shed. And hurry, child. The wind's sharp."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Jimsy set forth with a noisy whistle. When presently he returned with an
+armful of kindlings, his eyes were shining. And holding the door ajar,
+he coaxed into the warmth of Aunt Judith's kitchen a shivering dog,
+little and lame and thin.
+
+"Aunt Judith," he shrilled, dropping his kindlings into the box with a
+clatter, "look! He was out there under the woodpile, shiverin,' an' he
+won't go away. He's a stray, too, like I was afore Mom Dorgan gave me a
+bed with her kids." He patted the dog's head. "Gee, watch him duck, poor
+mutt! That's cause he's been walloped so much. Aunt Judith," he blurted,
+his gray eyes ablaze with pleading, "can't ye maybe jus' let him sleep
+behind the stove? He's so sort of shivery I--I feel awful sorry fur
+him."
+
+"No, no, no!" said Aunt Judith in distress. "I can't. I can't, indeed.
+Mr. Sawyer--"
+
+"JAMES!"
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Aunt Judith and Jimsy jumped. The first citizen stood in the doorway,
+the Lindon _Evening News_ in his hand, still unread. Nor could he have
+explained why, save that a boy's absence may, queerly enough, be as
+clamorous as his presence. With the biscuit still upon his mind, Abner
+Sawyer felt impelled to discipline.
+
+"Put the dog out!"
+
+Jimsy stood his ground. He was used to that. And Abner Sawyer wondered
+with a feeling of intense annoyance what there was about this ragged,
+noisy child that injected drama into incident. There was a tenseness in
+the silence of the trio and the cringing dog.
+
+"Aw, have a heart!" pleaded Jimsy finally, and there was faith and
+optimism in his steady glance.
+
+Abner Sawyer cleared his throat and looked away. He wondered why he felt
+defensive.
+
+"I am fully equipped with the organ you mention," he said drily. "Put
+the dog out."
+
+Jimsy reluctantly obeyed, and as the door closed upon the shivering
+little waif who scratched and whined at the door of his lost Paradise,
+Jimsy's face, sharpened by disappointment, seemed suddenly thinner and
+less boyish. Bent upon making the best of things, he reached for his
+cap.
+
+"Well," he said casually, "guess I'll go out and look the burg over."
+
+It was queer how Jimsy's conversation seemed to bristle with verbal
+shocks. Aunt Judith gasped. Mr. Sawyer fixed a stern eye upon the clock.
+
+"It is eight o'clock," he said in what seemed to Jimsy's puzzled
+comprehension a midnight tone of voice; "you will go to bed."
+
+Dumfounded, Jimsy followed Aunt Judith up to bed. Here in a great,
+old-fashioned bedroom he forgot everything in an eager contemplation of
+a whirling, feathery background to his window.
+
+"Aunt Judith," he called excitedly, "it's snowin'. Gee, that's
+Christmasy, ain't it! I don't mind the snow at all s'long's I got a bed
+cinched." His eager face lengthened. "Wisht Stump had a bed," he
+finished wistfully.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Stump?"
+
+"I jus' called him Stump, Aunt Judith, 'cause he didn't have no tail."
+Aunt Judith's eyes were sympathetic.
+
+But an embarrassing difficulty arose about Jimsy's bed attire which
+drove Stump for a time from his mind. It was solved by a night-shirt of
+first-citizen primness, which trailed upon the carpet and made him
+snigger self-consciously behind his hand until he heard Aunt Judith's
+step again beyond the door, when he vaulted into bed, shivering
+luxuriously in the chill softness of unaccustomed linen.... And then
+Aunt Judith blew out the lamp and tucked him in with hands so tremulous
+and gentle that his throat troubled him again, and he lay very still.
+Meeting her eyes, he suddenly buried his face in the pillow with a gulp
+and a sob, and clung to her hand. Aunt Judith, shaking, caught him
+wildly in her arms, cried very hard, and kissed him good-night. Jimsy,
+Stump and Aunt Judith Sawyer knew variously the meaning of starvation.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+III
+
+THE CHAIN GROWS
+
+
+The house grew very still. Jimsy, awaking after a time with the start of
+unfamiliar surroundings, heard the rattle of wind and snow against his
+window. A tree brushed monotonously against the panes--then through the
+sounds of winter storm came an unmistakable whimper and a howl. The boy
+sat up. Stump! Huddled likely against the door in an agony of faith.
+Jimsy thought of a winter night before Mom Dorgan had taken him in, and
+shivered. The howl came again. Rising, Jimsy opened his door on a crack
+and peered cautiously through it. The hallway was dimly alight from a
+lamp, set, for safety's sake, within a pewter bowl. The house of Sawyer
+slept. Gathering his train in his hand, Jimsy hurried through the hall
+and down the stairs to the lower floor, quite dark now, save for barred
+patches of window framing ghostly landscapes. A gust of wind and snow
+whirled in as he unbarred the kitchen door. Then something with an
+ingratiating waggle pushed gladly against his feet. Five seconds later
+Jimsy and Stump were on their way upstairs.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Excitement exacted its toll. Jimsy halted at the second turn in the
+upper hall, his scalp feeling very queer. The lamp had gone out,
+probably in the draft from the kitchen door, and he had lost his room!
+Whispering desperate admonitions to the wriggling dog beneath his arm,
+Jimsy went on tiptoed hunt until, finding a window, a turn and a door
+that seemed familiar, he heaved a great sigh of relief and turned the
+knob. As he pushed back the door, a flood of light and warmth fanned
+out, and Jimsy, tangling his feet in his train as only a small boy
+could, fell headlong into the room, propelling Stump, who yelped with
+fright, at the very feet of Abner Sawyer.
+
+"Oh, my Gosh!" yelled Jimsy wildly. "Pinched!"
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Outraged, the first citizen rose from a bench beside a table and a lamp,
+and Jimsy, scrambling to his feet, a ridiculous figure of apology and
+dismay in his billowing train and sagging shoulders, saw that Mr. Sawyer
+held in his hand a plane and a piece of wood and that the room in which
+he stood was a work-shop perfect in equipment.
+
+"What," demanded Mr. Sawyer in a terrible voice, "what does this mean?
+That dog--"
+
+But Jimsy had not heard.
+
+"Lordy," he breathed, "what a thump-walloper of a shop! Whisht Jack
+Sweeny could see this. My, wouldn't his good eye open! Whatcha makin'?"
+
+Mr. Sawyer reddened as any man may whose weakness has been unexpectedly
+detected by a boy in an acre of night-shirt.
+
+"No one," he began icily, "_no_ one--not even Mrs. Sawyer presumes to
+come beyond that threshold"--he broke off and frowned impatiently,
+feeling his power of aloofness threatened by something in Jimsy's eager
+stare which claimed a kinship of interest.... There was an alarming
+suggestion of intimacy anyway in a midnight scene with a tailless dog, a
+boy clad in your own night-shirt--and an inferential person with an eye
+by the name of Sweeny.... Why did a ridiculous frozen sense of guilt
+impede his tongue now when rebuke was imperative?... Why on earth had a
+look of relief and understanding supplanted the puzzled friendliness of
+Jimsy's supper-time stare?... So might a dog look who had waggled in
+friendly perplexity at the foot of a flawless statue only to find that
+the statue held in its hand a lowly but perfectly comprehensible bone
+... and the dog's attitude of course toward the flawless statue would
+never be quite the same--nor--
+
+"James," said the first citizen hoarsely, "go to bed!"
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Aw," said James softly, "make it Jimsy. Aunt Judith did. I ain't no
+stiff wit' spinach an' buttons chasin' newsies off the porch."
+
+"Jimsy!" said the first citizen faintly, and felt his world rock about
+him again. For fate and Jimsy, it was very plain, had filed the word
+away with the biscuit.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Jimsy's grin was radiant. Upset, Mr. Sawyer turned back to his bench
+with Jimsy at his heels.
+
+"Oh, Lordy, Lordy," breathed the boy in an ecstasy of admiration.
+"Makin' a Christmas present fur Aunt Judith on the sly, ain't ye? Won't
+she jus' open her eyes! _I_ bet! And polishin' the wood yerself. Gee!"
+
+Mr. Sawyer cleared his throat.
+
+"Mrs. Sawyer and I," said he, "do--not--exchange--gifts--at Christmas.
+This cabinet is for my private office at the bank."
+
+Jimsy's face fell.
+
+"Aw," he said gently, "seems like ye'd orta give her sumthin' fur
+Christmas. She's so awful good.... B'long to the union?"
+
+"I--I beg your pardon?"
+
+"Carpenters' union. Jack Sweeny does."
+
+The first citizen froze.
+
+"Carpentering with me," he explained stiffly, "is a fad--not an
+occupation or a necessity. I," he added "am President of the Lindon
+Bank."
+
+Jimsy's glance was sympathetic. It regretted the world's gain of a bank
+president at the expense of a better carpenter.
+
+"I kin plane," he pleaded eagerly. "Honest Injun, I kin. I kin whittle
+too, like ol' Scratch. Lemme plane this--"
+
+"I thank you," began Mr. Sawyer coldly, with unfortunate selection of
+words, "but--" His voice faltered under Jimsy's shining gaze. For,
+reading in the formal repudiation a vote of thanks, Jimsy had seized a
+plane and set to work.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The shavings flew. The clock ticked loudly in the quiet. Outside a
+winter blizzard was sweeping in white fury from the hills. Stump
+crouched silently in a corner, his head upon his paws. And Abner
+Sawyer, returning to his work in helpless indecision, felt his privacy
+and his dignity forever compromised by a boy and a dog. He knew of
+course that a small boy, scantily clad, should not be planing furiously
+on the bench beside him at midnight with a sociable gleam in his
+eye--yet--something--a terrible conviction perhaps that if he spoke at
+all his voice would be hoarse and uncertain and his poise threatened by
+the paralyzing sense of apology which welled strangely up within him in
+Jimsy's presence, tied his tongue. The minutes ticked loudly on and the
+shavings flew.... And Jimsy would misinterpret whatever he said in terms
+of sentimentality. He always did.... The clock struck one.... Abner
+Sawyer rose.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"James--Jimsy," he said, and his voice was hoarse and uncertain as he
+knew it would be, "you must go to bed."
+
+Jimsy looked up sympathetically.
+
+"Got a cold?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Frog in your throat?"
+
+"No."
+
+Jimsy resigned his plane with a sigh.
+
+"Golly," he laughed, "we'd catch it, wouldn't we--me and you--if Aunt
+Judith knew!"
+
+Then he glanced at Stump and said nothing at all. And quite suddenly
+conscience told Abner Sawyer that he could not accept without giving.
+Jimsy had helped him willingly and he had accepted--why he could not for
+the life of him remember, save that it had something to do with his
+throat and his poise. It did entail obligation of a sort, however, and
+he was a just man. Abner Sawyer did not look at Stump. He blew out the
+light.
+
+In silence the two passed out and closed the door. The episodic
+irregularities of the evening beginning with the Lindon _Evening News_
+had reached unheard of climax. A mongrel dog was asleep in the warmth of
+the sanctum.
+
+Abner Sawyer had a strangling sense of another link to his biscuit-riven
+chain and passed his hand over his forehead in a dazed and weary way.
+
+"Abner," said Aunt Judith nervously at breakfast, "you--you don't think
+this once we--could have--a--a Christmas tree for Jimsy?"
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Certainly not!" said Mr. Sawyer coldly.
+
+Aunt Judith's hand trembled a little as she poured the coffee and the
+first citizen waited so long for her usual reply that he thought
+impatiently it would never come. It came at last--quietly.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Just as you--say, Abner." But the final word was lost in an outraged
+yell from somewhere near the woodpile.
+
+"It--it must be Jimsy," said Aunt Judith hurriedly. "He--he was up so
+early I gave him his breakfast. He's shoveling the snow from the
+walks--"
+
+"Gwan!" came a muffled roar. "Say that again and I'll bust yer face
+good." Sounds of battle and vilifying repartee speedily upset the Sawyer
+breakfast. Abner Sawyer pushed back his chair and strode hastily to the
+kitchen window. He saw concentric circles of fists and snow and a
+yapping dog. He could not know that the defensive section of the
+maelstrom was Specks, the Christmas urchin next door, or that Jimsy and
+Specks settled every controversy under Heaven in a fashion of their own.
+
+The first citizen flung up the window.
+
+"James!" he said in a terrible voice.
+
+The concentric circles wavered--then whirled dizzily on.
+
+"James!" Too much conventional horror and dignity there to pierce the
+elemental.
+
+"_Jimsy!_" There was sharp informality now that meant business. Jimsy
+upset his freckled antagonist in the snow and wheeled.
+
+"Mister Sawyer," he yelled indignantly, "he went an' said ye was an ol'
+crab--an' a miser--an' a skinflint--an'--an' a stiff--an' I blacked his
+eye fur him an' tol' him he lied. An' he went an' said ye didn't have no
+heart or ye wouldn't let Aunt Judith carry in the wood an' do all the
+work an' never git no new clothes--"
+
+"Yi! Yi! Yi! Yi!" derided Specks. "Boney Middleton tol' me--Boney
+Middleton tol' me. You won't have no tree or nuthin'."
+
+"Didn't I tell ye 'bout the biscuit?" demanded Jimsy fiercely. "An'
+about Stump sleepin' in the work-shop, didn't I? Hain't that enuff?
+Hain't he good to boys an' dogs? I--I don't want no Christmas tree, ye
+big stiff. I'm goin' to have turkey--"
+
+But Abner Sawyer had closed the window with a bang. Although he did not
+look at Aunt Judith he knew that her face was white.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+IV
+
+THE CHAIN CLANKS
+
+
+It was the day before Christmas that the Village Conscience telephoned
+the Lindon Bank.
+
+"I felt that I must call you up, Mr. Sawyer," she said firmly, "and tell
+you that the boy you have with you over Christmas is going around from
+door to door, ringing the bell and--_begging_!"
+
+"Begging!"
+
+"Perhaps I shouldn't call it _just_ that--but--well, saying 'Merry
+Christmas!' rather hopefully."
+
+Feeling rather sick, Abner Sawyer formally thanked his informer and rang
+off. Glancing out of his office window he saw with a shock that instead
+of Austin White, who usually drove him home at night, Jimsy and Peggy,
+the old Sawyer mare, were waiting beneath a snow-ridged elm with the
+sleigh. Jimsy caught his eye, smiled warmly and waved, and because
+Abner Sawyer did not know what else to do, he stiffly returned the
+salute and reached for his hat, irritably conscious that sufficient
+sleep and food had already left their marks upon his guest. Jimsy's
+cheeks above the old-fashioned tippet Aunt Judith had wound about his
+throat were smooth and ruddy.
+
+"Aunt Judith didn't want me to come," explained Jimsy, "but I tol' her
+how Gink Gunnigan often let me drive his truck an' I guess I coaxed so
+hard she had to.... Unc--Mister Sawyer, it--it's nearly Chris'mus eve!"
+
+Abner Sawyer climbed in without a word. Peggy flew off with a jingle of
+bells through the village, through the woods, through a Christmas eve
+twilight dotted now with homely squares of light shining jewel-wise
+among the snowy trees.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Jimsy!"
+
+"Yes, sir?"
+
+"A lady telephoned that you'd been--_begging_--from door to door."
+
+Jimsy hung his head.
+
+"I--I only rung some door-bells an' said 'Merry Chris'mus.'"
+
+"You expected and received--money?"
+
+"Y-e-e-e-e-es, sir."
+
+"Why?"
+
+Silence.
+
+"Jimsy, I insist upon an explanation."
+
+Jimsy gulped and faced Abner Sawyer, his eyes blazing with heartbroken
+disappointment through tear-wet lashes.
+
+"Uncle Ab," he choked, "it--it was a Chris'mus s'prise fur you an' Aunt
+Judith." A great tear rolled slowly down upon the tippet. "I--I seen a
+book on fancy carpenterin' an' I--I didn't have no money an'--an' a
+thimble. It ain't silver, but it's 'mos' as good." And then Jimsy lost
+his moorings with a sob and cried his heart out upon the sleeve of Abner
+Sawyer. "I--I got the book buttoned under my coat," he blurted after a
+while, "an', Uncle Ab, I'm awful sorry 'bout the door-bells. All the
+fellus do it home--"
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Abner Sawyer would have been less than human if the boy's tragedy had
+not touched him.
+
+"Why," he asked huskily, "why did you wish to give me a Christmas
+present?"
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Because," cried Jimsy passionately, "yer so awful good to me an' Stump,
+an' so's Aunt Judith. An' I thought mebbe ye'd never had nobuddy ever
+give ye a present an' mean it like I did or--"
+
+"Or what, Jimsy?"
+
+"Ye'd feel diffrunt 'bout Christmas."
+
+The first citizen took the reins himself, tucked Jimsy in beneath the
+fur robe and drove home in silence, conscious only that the world was
+awry and he hated the Village Conscience. Nor was he quite himself even
+after supper was done and Jimsy, a little tearful still in his
+disappointment, safe in bed.
+
+"Abner--" began Aunt Judith from her chair by the fire.
+
+"Yes?" said Mr. Sawyer coldly. He wished Judith would not talk. She
+rarely did. He was tired and upset and probing desperately within for
+some remnant of the cold complacence of a week ago.
+
+"The minister was here to-day. He--he told me how Mrs. Dorgan took Jimsy
+in from the street. She--drinks. He--hasn't--a real--home. The minister
+would like--to--to find one for him."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Jimsy again! He must fling away his chain now or feel it clank.
+
+"That," said Abner Sawyer resentfully, "is of no interest to me."
+
+There was pitiful, hard-wrung bravery in Aunt Judith's face. Only a
+passionate surge of feeling could have swept away the silence and
+repression of the years. Only a woman's emotion, wild and maternal for
+all its starving, inevitable as the law of God, could have leaped a
+barrier so fixed and unrelenting.
+
+"Abner," she said desperately. "I--I want to keep Jimsy. I--I can't
+_bear_ to see him go--"
+
+"Judith!" There was more in the single word of course than Aunt Judith
+could know. There was an unread paper and a biscuit, a tailless dog
+invading sanctity, a yelling boy by a woodpile, and now the memory of a
+twilight ride and the tears of a choking lad upon his sleeve, an
+irritating record of moments of weakness which it behooved a first
+citizen to stamp out of his life forever. Aunt Judith read in his face
+an inexorable death-sentence of her hope and rose, trembling.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"You are a hard, cold man!" she said, very white. "And the house is so
+lonely I hate it!... I _hate_ it!" quivered Aunt Judith with a long
+shuddering sob; "there's no one to love in it--no one! And everything
+Specks said to Jimsy was true!"
+
+And then, crying and shaking, she was gone, and Abner Sawyer went with
+stumbling feet to the privacy of his work-shop, his face death-white.
+The pompous illusions of his little world were tumbling to ruins about
+him.
+
+He had said with frequent unction that he was a "hard" man, interpreting
+that phrase liberally in terms of thrift, economy and substantial common
+sense, and his world, through the mouth of an urchin, had flung back to
+him the galling words--_miser_ and _skinflint_! They had fawned to his
+face and flouted his back, gossiping of servants and made-over gowns
+and kindlings. Up and down the quiet work-shop walked Abner Sawyer,
+clinging in an agony of humiliation to the loyalty of a little
+urchin.... It was all he had, he told himself fiercely, all he had!
+Jimsy alone saw him as he was and liked him.... No heart!... No
+Christmas tree!... No one in the house to love.... He must prove then to
+Specks--to Jimsy--to Judith--to the Middletons--to all Lindon--
+
+Turning with hot anger in his heart, he saw a book upon his work-bench;
+and picking it up, Abner Sawyer faced the pitiful fiasco of Jimsy's
+Christmas gift. With a great lump in his throat and his eyes wet he
+glanced at the fly-leaf.
+
+"To Uncle Ab," it said, "from Jimsy. Chrismus gretings."
+
+The door clicked as it had clicked the night before and the night
+before.
+
+"Unc--Mister Sawyer," said Jimsy sleepily. "I 'mos' forgot to come, I
+was so awful tired an' sleepy.... Ain't--ain't sick, are ye, Uncle Ab?
+Yer face is awful queer."
+
+"I--I don't know," said the first citizen hoarsely. "I--I think I am. Go
+to bed, Jimsy, and--thank--you--for the book."
+
+Jimsy went back to bed. He did not know--nor did Aunt Judith or Abner
+Sawyer that presently he was the sole keeper of the house save Stump
+snoring in the kitchen. For Abner Sawyer was furtively driving Peggy
+into a village that knew him only by repute and Aunt Judith, having
+slipped away in white defiance to Cousin Lemuel's down the road, was
+driving into Lindon with the surreptitious savings of many years in the
+old-fashioned pocket of her gown.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+V
+
+THE PROVING
+
+
+The clock struck six. It was Christmas morning! Jimsy awoke with the
+thought of turkey uppermost in his mind, to find Aunt Judith by his bed,
+a wonderful look of Christmas, he thought, in her gentle face.
+
+"Dress quickly, Jimsy," she whispered, "and don't make a sound--not a
+sound! I'll wait outside by the door. It--it's a Christmas secret that
+nobody but you and I must know."
+
+Jimsy tumbled into his clothes and opened the door.
+
+"W-w-w-w-what is it, Aunt Judith?" he whispered.
+
+But for answer Aunt Judith only hurried him in a flutter to the
+sewing-room, safe this many a year from the measured tread of
+first-citizen feet, and closed the door.
+
+"Oh, Aunt Judith!" gulped the boy. "Aunt Judith!"
+
+A Christmas tree winked and rainbowed glory in a window by the eaves,
+everything beneath its tinselled branches that the heart of boy could
+wish. The radiance in Jimsy's eyes brought Aunt Judith to her knees
+beside him, her sweet, tired eyes wet with tears of pleasure.
+
+"You like it, Jimsy?" she whispered. "You're sure you like it, dear?"
+
+Jimsy buried his face on Aunt Judith's shoulder with a strangled sob of
+excitement and delight.
+
+"Aunt Judith," he blurted, "I--I can't 'mos' tell ye what I think."
+
+Aunt Judith's arms clung tightly to him.
+
+"Cousin Lemuel helped me," she whispered. "The house was dark and Mr.
+Sawyer in bed. There wasn't even a light in the work-shop. We tiptoed up
+and down the back-stairs. You mustn't breathe a word of it, Jimsy! Not a
+word! It's for you and me."
+
+Jimsy sighed.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Whisht," he said, "whisht Uncle Ab believed in Chris'mus."
+
+Aunt Judith kissed him.
+
+"Bless your heart, Jimsy," she said bravely. "So do I."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+But even bewildering hours with gifts and trees must come to an end, and
+presently Aunt Judith and Jimsy went down hand in hand to attend to the
+fire and breakfast.... And the opening of the sitting-room door froze
+Aunt Judith Sawyer to the threshold, her face whitely unbelieving.
+Something was wrong with the primness of the sitting-room--something in
+evergreen and tinsel and a hundred candles that showered Christmas from
+its boughs--something was wrong with Abner Sawyer--up and waiting by the
+window, his face twisted into a faint and sickly smile of apology.
+
+For now that he was in the very heart of his "proving" he did not know
+what on earth to do. Dignity?... It was hopelessly out of the question.
+With a monument to his midnight guilt blazing there in the corner--with
+Christmas wreaths hung in the windows to confound the Middletons--he
+must face the music. Feeling very foolish, he cleared his throat and
+essayed to speak, paralyzed into silence again by the unexpected
+evolution of a hoarse croak so horribly un-first-citizen that it
+frightened him.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Jimsy broke the staring silence.
+
+"Uncle Ab," he quivered, "ye never--ye never went an' done all that fur
+me!"
+
+"I--I don't know," said Abner Sawyer, swallowing very hard. "I--I think
+I did."
+
+"When," faltered Aunt Judith from the doorway, "did you--do it?"
+
+"It must have been after midnight. I came in very quietly. The ride was
+long--I went to Matsville. You must have been in bed asleep--"
+
+Jimsy embarked upon a handspring of celebration.
+
+"Two trees!" he shouted, caution quite forgotten in his wild excitement,
+"two suits of clothes--two everything! Oh, my gosh, Specks ain't in it.
+I'm the Christmas kid!" and then in a panic he was on his feet again,
+his face hot and red. "Aunt Judith," he exclaimed, almost crying, "I'm
+awfully sorry--"
+
+Aunt Judith's tremulous laugh seemed tears and silver.
+
+"Never mind, dear. It's all right now. Abner," she swallowed bravely,
+"one of--one of Jimsy's Christmas trees is in the sewing-room. I--I'd
+like you to see it."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+VI
+
+THE TRIUMPH
+
+
+Specks reviewed the Christmas tree in the sitting-room after breakfast
+and looked upset. It was bigger than his own.
+
+"Got one downstairs, too," crowed Jimsy. "Uncle Ab," he added, "he sort
+o' wanted it to be awful Christmasy through the whole house, an'--an'
+Jiminy Crickets, Specks, it is!"
+
+"Uncle Ab--who's Uncle Ab?"
+
+"Uncle Ab Sawyer." Jimsy bristled. "What ye got to say about it?"
+
+"Nuthin'."
+
+"Did _you_ get _two_ trees, Specks?"
+
+"Naw. Hain't many folks did, I guess. 'Tain't nuthin' to crow about,
+anyway."
+
+"Huh! Thought ye said the Middletons was more Christmasy'n us."
+
+"I didn't."
+
+"Ye did."
+
+"I didn't."
+
+"Ye did, too, and I walloped ye fur it. I'll wallop ye again if ye say
+ye didn't."
+
+"Jimsy!" Aunt Judith's gentle voice put an end to controversy. An
+armistice was pledged.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Did ye get skates, Specks?"
+
+"Nope."
+
+"Gosh, I'm sorry fur that. I got two pairs. Mebbe--Aunt Judith?"
+
+"Yes, Jimsy?"
+
+"Would ye mebbe mind me givin' Specks a pair o' skates? Mr. Middleton he
+ain't so Christmasy as you an' Uncle Ab--"
+
+Specks swallowed hard and accepted this and the skates. But he could not
+forbear at least one shaft of triumph.
+
+"I got a sled, Jimsy!"
+
+"Huh!" said Jimsy. "So did I. Two of 'em."
+
+It was too much. The street urchin in Specks came to the fore in a
+mighty wave of envy.
+
+"Gawd!" he gulped.
+
+Jimsy glowered.
+
+"Hey!" he whispered fiercely "Hain't ye got no decency?"
+
+Specks blushed apology and departed.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Later, Jimsy reviewed the Sawyer turkey with a reverential glisten in
+his eye.
+
+"Specks!" he yelled from the kitchen window. "Yi, Specksy!"
+
+"What d'ye want?"
+
+"Come over an' see the turkey."
+
+"Y'ain't got two, have ye?" demanded Specks with suspicion.
+
+"Naw," said Jimsy. "One's enuff. This un's bigger'n the turkey Pete
+Googan raffled off last Christmas eve."
+
+So Specks returned to envy--for the house of Sawyer had outdone the
+house of Middleton once more--and Jimsy in a glow of noisy delight led
+him to rows of pies and a barrel of ruddy apples--to celery and
+tarts--to fruit cake and cranberries and simmering vegetables--in short
+to every home-keeping kitchen device for filling a country house with
+the odor of Christmas and the promise of good cheer. The Sawyer kitchen
+to-day was a wonderful place of shine and spice. Even Aunt Judith felt
+the nameless something in the air, for her cheeks were faintly pink and
+the hand that smoothed her snowy apron trembled ever so little.
+Christmas had not come so this many a year.
+
+But Specks departed this time with a furtive air of triumph.
+
+"Mr. Middleton ain't no stiff," he announced. "_He's_ goin' out on the
+hill coastin' with me this afternoon--"
+
+"S-s-s-s-h!" whispered Jimsy fiercely. "D'ye want Aunt Judith to hear
+ye? I git awful sick o' wallopin' you, Specks, but lemme hear ye say
+that again an' I'll baste ye good."
+
+The kitchen door swung back. Specks paled, as well he might. The first
+citizen stood in the doorway, his mouth set.
+
+"Jimsy," he said, clearing his throat. "Get your sled, my boy. We'd
+better try it out before dinner."
+
+It was a challenge to the Middletons, of course, but afterwards, in a
+wild moment of panic, Abner Sawyer felt that he would have retracted at
+any cost had it not been for the wonderful glow in Jimsy's face. He felt
+a little sick.... God help him, he liked Jimsy! He wanted to please
+him!
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+VII
+
+THE DOWNFALL
+
+
+The Lindon hill was full of watchers. That in itself was disconcerting.
+Wild spirits gather in the snow on Christmas morning. And it was, of
+course, like Jimsy to fling himself suddenly upon his sled with a whoop
+and go flying down the hill through the snow fleet, yelling wildly, but
+Abner Sawyer wished he had made his début a trifle less conspicuously.
+For it brought all eyes to Abner Sawyer himself standing stiffly upon
+the hill-top not quite sure of his ground. A neighbor or so eyed him in
+polite surprise and nodded; a child fastened round eyes upon his silk
+hat and he wished he had left it at home. But Christmas was no more
+Christmas than Sunday was Sunday without this formal head-piece, and
+besides, it had been his sole concession to the horrified stir of
+dignity within him when Jimsy had appeared upon the walk beside him
+dragging his sled. What on earth was he doing here anyway in the rough
+and tumble sport of a Christmas morning!
+
+Yells of greeting followed Jimsy's meteoric flight down the hillside.
+Everybody seemed to know and like him, and Jimsy, as ever, was noisily
+responsive. Yes, he was more a part of this village of Lindon than the
+first citizen himself standing aloof upon the hill-top, and the first
+citizen had spent his life in Lindon. Abner Sawyer felt hurt and alone.
+He had slipped in an unwary moment from his wound-proof armor of
+conscious superiority and in this world of friends outside it, there was
+more room for Jimsy than there was for him. Small comfort, after all,
+the solitude of greatness!
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The first citizen frowned impatiently. What was it all about, anyway, he
+wondered hopelessly. Did he want to be one of that yelling, shoving,
+jostling crowd? Surely not! His dignity rose in revolt at the very
+thought of it. Did he hunger for Jimsy's supreme gift of adaptability?
+Why should this fierce new hunger for one friendly, honest,
+heart-warming smile of liking and welcome gnaw at his heart?... Why--God
+help him!--why was he a stranger in his own town?
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"The world is all wrong," said Abner Sawyer, a little white; "I am not
+myself." And for a wild moment his sore heart flamed again at Jimsy's
+revolutionizing intrusion into the quiet smugness of his life.
+
+Jimsy's quick, eager little smile of greeting as he came up the hill
+again warmed the pang away--it was so full of good-fellowship and
+understanding.
+
+"Ever go belly-whopper, Uncle Ab?" he demanded radiantly.
+
+"I--I scarcely think so," said the first citizen.
+
+"I--I don't like to belly-whop down the hill with you standin' up here
+alone," said Jimsy shyly. "Why don't ye go down just once with me, Uncle
+Ab? Then if ye like it, we'll just have one thump-walloper of a time!"
+
+"No, no, Jimsy," said the first citizen. "I--I can't do that--" and then
+for the first time he met the amused eyes of Hiram Middleton and
+Specks.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+So they had followed to the hill--incredulous and curious! A wave of
+anger swept Abner Sawyer into indiscretion.
+
+"I--I'll go with you once, Jimsy," he said, and Jimsy's round little
+face glowed.
+
+So the first citizen seated himself stiffly on the sled behind Jimsy,
+wondering what on earth to do with his legs. They seemed to have
+lengthened mysteriously and they looked astonishingly thin. Jimsy gave a
+wild Indian whoop of warning and the sled hurtled off down the hill,
+with the first citizen, unbelievably stiff-legged and frightened,
+clinging to his hat.
+
+His emotions were panoramic. There was panic first at his lost
+dignity--then wonder at their speed, but most of all his legs bothered
+him--his legs and his hat. He wished Jimsy would quit yelling. Yet for
+all he tried he could not bring himself to say so.
+
+"Ki-yi-yi-yi-whoop!" sang Jimsy, steering. Abner Sawyer gulped.
+Everybody on the hill, of course, was staring; his coat-tails were
+flying dizzily behind him. There would be a scandal and the directors
+of the Lindon Bank might even meet and call him to account. Small
+blame to them. Abner Sawyer mentally sketched a caricature of
+himself--coat-tails, legs and all--and Heaven help him!--lost his hat.
+He emitted a feeble croak of dismay. Jimsy looking back steered into a
+snow-bank and dumped the president of the Lindon Bank out upon the hill.
+
+"Gosh Almighty, Uncle Ab," he yelled, "I'm awful sorry. I seen your lid
+go--"
+
+"Never mind, Jimsy," said the first citizen, sitting up, "never
+mind--I--I really shouldn't have worn such a wind-catcher to--to
+belly-whop in--"
+
+He sat very stiff amid the ruins of the snow-bank. Jimsy grinned.
+
+"Ye ain't really done no belly-whoppin' yet," he said.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+And now for the first time Abner Sawyer realized that everybody on the
+hill had come running at Jimsy's yell to see if he was hurt.... One was
+brushing him off ... another had rescued his hat with a horrible
+un-first-citizen dent in it and a lump of snow on the brim ... and they
+weren't shocked ... they weren't laughing.... Why on earth should there
+be friendliness now in their gaze when he had seemed so far away from
+them standing up there on the hill? No scandalized amazement here at the
+downfall of Lindon's pride ... he was somehow closer to them all.
+
+It was Aunt Polly Magee, the self-appointed mother of the village, who
+finally stood the first citizen upon his feet and brushed the snow from
+his back.
+
+"Dear me," she said, "that was a spill. When ye went down ye seemed
+'mos' as leggy as a spider. Next time ye go coastin', Ab, ye'd better
+not wear your Sunday hat. 'Tain't no better'n a kite when it comes to
+wind."
+
+Abner Sawyer's smile was vague and apologetic, but there was a fierce,
+wild joy in his heart that he didn't try to understand. He was glad he
+had lost his hat--he was glad he had fallen into the snow-bank--and he
+was glad Aunt Polly Magee had called him Ab for the first time in thirty
+years!
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+VIII
+
+THE CHAIN IS LOCKED
+
+
+Like a rainbow blur fled the Sawyer Christmas, punctuated with the yells
+and bangs of boyhood. From dawn to bed it was a triumph.
+
+"Jimsy," said the first citizen at dusk, "has it--has it been what you'd
+call a--a walloper-thump--"
+
+"Thump-walloper," corrected Jimsy.
+
+"Thump-walloper of a day?"
+
+Jimsy's reply was ecstatic.
+
+"I 'mos' always forget," he added ruefully. "Aunt Judith said I mustn't
+call ye Uncle Ab. Which d'ye like best, Uncle Ab? Mister Sawyer or Uncle
+Ab?"
+
+"I--I think," said the first citizen with a gulp, "that I like Uncle Ab
+a little better."
+
+"So do I," said Jimsy.
+
+With a wind-beaten flutter of wings, Jimsy's Christmas fled at
+midnight. Dawn grayed bleakly over the Sawyer home, and there came an
+hour when Peggy waited to carry Jimsy to the station. Nervous and
+irritable--why he did not know save that time was crowding and he must
+deliver Jimsy to the minister in time for the 8.32, Abner Sawyer strode
+resolutely to the kitchen door. But he did not summon Jimsy. Instead he
+turned a little white.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+It was a common enough sight--a woman clinging to a child and
+crying--but Abner Sawyer was conscious of a swelling mutiny in his
+throat and a blur to his vision.
+
+"Do-o-o-on't cry, Aunt Judith!" gulped Jimsy courageously. "I'll be as
+good as I know how. An' you'll be awful good to Stump, won't ye, Aunt
+Judith? He's lame an'--an' he's had a fierce life."
+
+"Yes--yes--"
+
+"An' tell Uncle Austin White I sent him good-by."
+
+"Yes, Jimsy."
+
+"An'--an' write me every week 'bout ol' Peggy an' Uncle Ab an'--an' you,
+Aunt Judith. Don't forget--"
+
+"Everything, dear!"
+
+"Go-o-o-oby, Aunt Judith!"
+
+"Oh, Jimsy! Jimsy!"
+
+Abner Sawyer fled to his wagon with his hands upon his ears. It was the
+wildest sobbing he had ever heard. When Jimsy came, at last, looking
+very red and swollen, the first citizen was staring straight ahead.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Peggy finished at the station almost neck and neck with the train. The
+minister spoke to Mr. Sawyer and rushed Jimsy up the steps. A bell
+clanged. There was much noise and puffing and the train was under way.
+Jimsy, wildly remembering his good-by to Uncle Ab, flung up the train
+window and waved a frantic hand.
+
+Then something happened.
+
+A shaking hand touched the baggage-master.
+
+"Stop the train!" said Abner Sawyer harshly. He was deathly white.
+"It--it is important. I will pay if necessary."
+
+It was unprecedented, but, thoroughly rural in his taste for sensation,
+the baggage-master leaped to the bottom step of the nearest car and
+spoke to a brakeman. The brakeman glanced at the first citizen with
+respect. There was a hissing noise and a jerk. When the train rumbled to
+a stop again under the startled eyes of Lindon, Abner Sawyer was already
+striding up the aisle. With the intelligent eyes of the young minister
+upon him, he snatched Jimsy roughly from the seat, carried him down the
+aisle--down the steps--and over the platform to Peggy.
+
+"W-what is it, Uncle Ab?" faltered the boy. "Did I--did I forget
+something?"
+
+Abner Sawyer felt the boy's warm young cheek against his face and a
+great lump welled up in his throat. Something hot stung his eyes. The
+clasp of his arms tightened.
+
+"Jimsy," he said huskily, "you said I ought to give Aunt Judith a
+Christmas present, and I'm going to give her--_you_!"
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Jimsy, by Leona Dalrymple
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JIMSY ***
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+
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
+  <head>
+    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" />
+    <title>
+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of Jimsy, The Christmas Kid, by Leona Dalrymple.
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css">
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+
+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Jimsy, by Leona Dalrymple
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Jimsy
+       The Christmas Kid
+
+Author: Leona Dalrymple
+
+Illustrator: Charles Guischard
+
+Release Date: February 18, 2009 [EBook #28110]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JIMSY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Annie McGuire
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<h1>Jimsy</h1>
+
+<h1>The Christmas Kid</h1>
+
+<h3>By</h3>
+
+<h2>Leona Dalrymple</h2>
+
+<h4>Author of "The Lovable Meddler," "Diane</h4>
+
+<h4>of the Green Van," "Uncle Noah's</h4>
+
+<h4>Christmas Party," etc.</h4>
+
+<h3>Decorations by</h3>
+
+<h2>Charles Guischard</h2>
+
+<h3>New York</h3>
+
+<h3>Robert M. McBride &amp; Company</h3>
+
+<h3>1915</h3>
+
+<h4>Copyright, 1915, by</h4>
+
+<h4>Robert M. McBride &amp; Co.</h4>
+
+<h4>Published October, 1915</h4>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='right'>CHAPTER</td><td align='left'></td><td align='right'>PAGE</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>I</td><td align='left'><a href="#I"><b>The Invasion</b></a></td><td align='right'>9</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>II</td><td align='left'><a href="#II"><b>The Biscuit Link</b></a></td><td align='right'>19</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>III</td><td align='left'><a href="#III"><b>The Chain Grows</b></a></td><td align='right'>27</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>IV</td><td align='left'><a href="#IV"><b>The Chain Clanks</b></a></td><td align='right'>38</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>V</td><td align='left'><a href="#V"><b>The Proving</b></a></td><td align='right'>46</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>VI</td><td align='left'><a href="#VI"><b>The Triumph</b></a></td><td align='right'>51</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>VII</td><td align='left'><a href="#VII"><b>The Downfall</b></a></td><td align='right'>55</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>VIII</td><td align='left'><a href="#VIII"><b>The Chain is Locked</b></a></td><td align='right'>61</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="Jimsy" id="Jimsy"></a>Jimsy</h2>
+
+<h2>The Christmas Kid</h2>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 300px;">
+<img src="images/ill_001.jpg" width="300" height="45" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="I" id="I"></a>I</h2>
+
+<h3>THE INVASION</h3>
+
+<p>His name was Jimsy and he took it for granted that you liked him. That
+made things difficult from the very start&mdash;that and the fact that he
+arrived in the village two days before Christmas strung to such a
+holiday pitch of expectation that, if you were a respectable,
+bewhiskered first citizen like Jimsy's host, you felt the cut-and-dried
+dignity of a season which unflinching thrift had taught you to pare of
+all its glittering non-essentials, threatened by his bubbling air of
+faith in something wonderful to happen.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He had arrived at twilight, just as the first citizen was about to read
+his evening paper, and he had made a great deal of noise, yelling back
+at old Austin White, whose sleigh had conveyed him from the station to
+the house, a "S'long, Uncle!" pregnant with the friendliness of a
+conversational ride. He had scraped away his snow-heels with a somewhat
+sustained noise, born perhaps of shyness, and now, as he stood in the
+center of the prim, old-fashioned room, a thin, eager youngster not too
+warmly clad for the bite of the New England wind, Abner Sawyer felt with
+a sense of shock that this city urchin whom Judith had promised to
+"Christmas," detracted, in some ridiculous manner, from the
+respectability of the room. He was an inharmonious note in its staid
+preciseness. Moreover, it was evident from the frank friendliness of his
+dark, gray eyes that he was perniciously of that type who frolic through
+a frosty, first-citizen aura of informality and give and accept
+friendship as a matter of course.</p>
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 200px;">
+<img src="images/ill_002.jpg" width="200" height="77" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>"What&mdash;what is your name?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> asked the first citizen, peering over his
+spectacles. He wished that Judith's Christmas prot&eacute;g&eacute; was not so thin
+and a trifle larger.</p>
+
+<div class="figright" style="width: 144px;">
+<img src="images/ill_003.jpg" width="144" height="150" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>"Jimsy," answered the boy. "An' Specks, he's me chum; he goes to Mister
+Middleton's, next door."</p>
+
+<p>Specks and Jimsy! The first citizen helplessly cleared his throat and
+summoned Judith.</p>
+
+<p>She came in a spotless apron no whiter than her hair. She was
+spare&mdash;Aunt Judith Sawyer&mdash;spare and patient as the wife of a provident
+man may well be who sees no need for servants, and her primness was of a
+gentler, vaguer sort than that of Abner Sawyer. Jimsy glanced up into
+her sweet, tired face and his eager eyes claimed her with a bewildering
+smile of welcome. Then because Jimsy's experience with clean aprons and
+trimly parted hair was negligible almost to the point of non-existence,
+it became instantly imperative that he should polish the toe of one worn
+shoe with the sole of the other and study the result and Aunt Judith
+with furtive interest.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Judith," said the first citizen, not wholly at his ease,
+"Mr.&mdash;er&mdash;ah&mdash;Mr. Jimsy has arrived."</p>
+
+<p>Jimsy snickered.</p>
+
+<p>"Naw, naw, nix!" he said. "Jimsy's the handle. I'm a stray, I am. Hain't
+got no folks. Mom Dorgan says ye have to have folks to have a
+bunch-name. I'm the Christmas kid."</p>
+
+<p>"To be sure you are," said Aunt Judith gently, "to be sure. And where
+are your things?"</p>
+
+<p>Jimsy's thin little face reddened.</p>
+
+<p>"Hain't only got one rig," he mumbled, "an' that warn't fitten to wear.
+Mom Dorgan borried these duds fur me. She&mdash;she's awful good that way
+when she's sober."</p>
+
+<p>There was wistful eagerness in his face to do his best by the one friend
+who helped him.</p>
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 134px;">
+<img src="images/ill_004.jpg" width="134" height="150" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>Quite unconscious of the scandalized flutter in this quiet room whose
+oval portraits of ancestral Sawyers might well have tumbled down at the
+notion of any one being anything but sober, the boy moved closer to the
+fire as if the ride had chilled him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figright" style="width: 133px;">
+<img src="images/ill_005.jpg" width="133" height="200" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>"Gee!" he said with a long, quivering breath, "ain't that a fire, now,
+ain't it!" and because his keen young eyes could not somehow be evaded,
+Abner Sawyer accepted the responsibility of the reply and said hastily
+that it was. Then feeling his dignity imperilled in the presence of
+Judith, though why he could not for the life of him explain, he moved
+forward a chair for the Christmas guest and returned to his paper.</p>
+
+<p>Aunt Judith went back to a region of tinkling china and humming kettle.
+The room became quiet enough for any one to read, but the first citizen
+somehow could not read. He was ridiculously conscious of that tense
+little figure by the fire with the disturbingly friendly eyes. How on
+earth could a boy be noisy who was absolutely quiet? Yet his very
+presence seemed to clamor&mdash;the clamor of an inherent sociability
+repressed with difficulty.</p>
+
+<p>Jimsy glanced at the checkerboard window beyond which snowy hills lay
+beneath a sunset afterglow.</p>
+
+<p>"Gee whiz!" he burst forth. "<i>Ain't</i> the snow white!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The first citizen jumped&mdash;much as one may jump when he has waited in
+nerve-racking suspense for a pistol shot. The boy had done exactly what
+he had expected him to do&mdash;broken that sacred ante-prandial hour with
+the Lindon <i>Evening News</i> which Judith had not broken this twenty years.</p>
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 130px;">
+<img src="images/ill_006.jpg" width="130" height="150" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>"Snow," he said discouragingly, for all he had determined to ignore the
+remark, "snow is always white."</p>
+
+<p>Jimsy shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"Naw," he said. "N'York snow's gray an' dirty. Specks said the snow we
+seen on the hills from the train winder was Christmas card snow, and
+with that the minister he up an' tells Specks an' me 'bout reg'lar
+old-fashioned country Christmases, fire like this an' Christmas trees
+an'&mdash;an' sleigh-bells an' gifts an' wreaths an' skatin' an'
+holly&mdash;Gee&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"That," said Abner Sawyer with cold finality, "will be quite enough."</p>
+
+<p>"Sure," agreed Jimsy. "A Christmas like that 'snuff fur any kid."</p>
+
+<p>Irritably conscious that his reproof had been misinterpreted, the first
+citizen<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> riveted his gaze upon the Lindon <i>Evening News</i>. But he could
+not read. Jimsy's irreverent air of friendliness was not the only
+disturbing factor in his Christmasing. Jimsy, plainly, was cherishing
+expectations.</p>
+
+<p>Conscious-driven, Abner Sawyer laid aside his paper.</p>
+
+<div class="figright" style="width: 118px;">
+<img src="images/ill_007.jpg" width="118" height="150" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>"James," he began primly, "I must take this occasion to inform you that
+Mrs. Sawyer and I spend Christmas quietly&mdash;very quietly. We have never
+had a Christmas tree, and personally I consider that holly is most
+suitable and decorative where Nature planted it. Christmas," finished
+Mr. Sawyer, slightly disconcerted by Jimsy's attentive stare, "Christmas
+is merely a day and a dinner. Let the frivolous make of it an orgy of
+sentimentality if they will."</p>
+
+<p>Jimsy's face fell.</p>
+
+<p>"Gee!" he said, "your Christmas ain't just an extra Sunday, is it?"</p>
+
+<p>Shocked, Abner Sawyer glinted over the tops of his glasses.</p>
+
+<p>"No," he said with an effort, "it&mdash;it is somewhat different."</p>
+
+<p>"How's it different?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I"&mdash;the first citizen froze&mdash;"I hardly know."</p>
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 120px;">
+<img src="images/ill_008.jpg" width="120" height="150" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>"What d'ye have that ye don't have Sundays?"</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I believe it's turkey," conceded Mr. Sawyer desperately, and feeling
+his dignity hopelessly compromised by a dialogue of such pronounced
+informality, returned to his paper.</p>
+
+<p>"Gee!" said Jimsy, with a sigh of relief, "that's mos' enuff itself to
+make a Christmas. Hain't never tasted turkey." He was silent a minute,
+in which the clock ticked loudly. It was purple now beyond the
+old-fashioned panes and the lamp seemed brighter. Jimsy's shrill young
+voice broke the quiet, as it would, of course, be sure to do.</p>
+
+<p>"Say," he said kindly, "don't you worry none about that there Christmas
+tree an' no holly. We'll have a thump-walloper of a day, anyhow!"</p>
+
+<p>It is conceivable that Abner Sawyer's experience with thump-wallopers
+had been limited. There was something in the boy's words, however, that
+brought his gaze over the top of his spectacles again and over his
+paper. It was disconcerting<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> to note that Jimsy still bristled with
+faith and friendliness and cheerful expectation.</p>
+
+<p>"My remark," he said coldly, "about the absence of a tree and holly was
+a statement&mdash;not an apology."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't get ye," admitted Jimsy. "Come again." And there was danger of a
+mutual dead-lock of comprehension. Aunt Judith saved the day. Arriving
+in the doorway with a flutter, she said that supper was ready and that
+James had better wash his face and hands. And James, who was Jimsy,
+meeting Aunt Judith's gentle eyes, turned scarlet, and stumbling to his
+feet, he stepped, en route, upon the stately toe of Lindon's pride.</p>
+
+<div class="figright" style="width: 200px;">
+<img src="images/ill_009.jpg" width="200" height="82" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>"Gee!" he burst forth contritely. "I'm awful sorry, honest Injun I am.
+Spoiled yer shine, didn't I? An' it was a beaut, too!"</p>
+
+<p>Could even a first citizen rebuke such eager apology? Better to stay
+within the certain shelter of a chilling silence.</p>
+
+<p>Abner Sawyer rose, but even as he did so his world of law and order
+seemed to rock in chaos about his feet. He<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> was going out to supper&mdash;and
+he had not read a single line in the Lindon <i>Evening News</i>!</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span></p><div class="figcenter" style="width: 127px;">
+<img src="images/ill_010.jpg" width="127" height="150" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 300px;">
+<img src="images/ill_011.jpg" width="300" height="82" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="II" id="II"></a>II</h2>
+
+<h3>THE BISCUIT LINK</h3>
+
+<p>It was at supper that the terrible realization came to Abner Sawyer that
+Jimsy liked everything and <i>every one</i> rather too well. He liked the ham
+and he liked the biscuits, he accepted alarming quantities of marmalade
+with utter confidence in his digestion; his round eyes swept every nook
+of the prim old room and marveled at old-fashioned china and silver that
+might have come over in the <i>Mayflower</i>, and then again might not, and
+he continued irreverently unaware that the first citizen was president
+of the Lindon Bank and therefore not a person to be liked
+indiscriminately by urchins. Thanks to something in Aunt Judith's eyes,
+furtively concessional to boyhood, Jimsy had mislaid what little
+constraint and shyness he had had at first. His at-homeness might be
+gauged at a glance by the way he gazed at the biscuits.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Dear me," said Aunt Judith, glancing from Jimsy to the biscuits to see
+which most threatened the other, "I&mdash;I scarcely think&mdash;I hardly know.
+Abner?"</p>
+
+<p>Time, Abner, now to impress this urchin once for all with a show of
+power in terms he can understand!</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Sawyer settled the trivial question of biscuits with dignity.</p>
+
+<p>"James," he said. "You may have just <i>one</i> more biscuit."</p>
+
+<p>And Aunt Judith nodded:</p>
+
+<p>"Just as you say, my dear!" as she had been nodding effasively for
+thirty years.</p>
+
+<p>Jimsy's eyes were very grateful and it came over the first citizen with
+sickening conviction that Jimsy, misinterpreting again, had regarded the
+biscuit as an overture instead of a show of power. Ridiculous indeed to
+have thrown about your neck the unwelcome chain of a boy's regard and
+then unintentionally to cement that chain&mdash;by a biscuit!</p>
+
+<p>Abner Sawyer departed hastily for his lamp, his fire and his paper.</p>
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 200px;">
+<img src="images/ill_012.jpg" width="200" height="55" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>Jimsy followed Aunt Judith to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> kitchen and here, in the shining
+quiet of an old-fashioned kitchen whose spotless rows of pans and its
+rocker by the window reflected nothing of first citizenship, the
+memory-making mystery of child and woman in a homely setting drew taut
+an age-old chord of sympathy. Out of the hum of the kettle and the
+fire-shadows of the grate it came, out of the winter wind that rattled
+the checkerpaned windows&mdash;that eternal something that is only given to
+women to understand. Jimsy did not know why Aunt Judith smiled or why
+the smile made his throat hurt a little. He only knew by her eyes that
+she liked him and that was enough.</p>
+
+<p>"Aunt Judith," he blurted, "lemme&mdash;aw, lemme wipe your dishes."</p>
+
+<p>But Aunt Judith, with the wisdom of women, knew that the best-behaved
+china is perversely given to leaping without warning out of the hands of
+any boy, to his utter consternation, and she patted him on the back.</p>
+
+<p>"Bless your heart, Jimsy," she said, "there are so few I can do them
+myself in no time."</p>
+
+<div class="figright" style="width: 102px;">
+<img src="images/ill_013.jpg" width="102" height="150" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>Jimsy!&mdash;not James! Jimsy felt that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> he must do something for Aunt Judith
+Sawyer or his throat would burst. So finding one leg at liberty, he
+furtively kicked the leg of the stove and hurt his toe, even as his eyes
+fell upon a depleted stock of kindlings in the wood-box.</p>
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 123px;">
+<img src="images/ill_014.jpg" width="123" height="150" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>"Well, then," he burst out in a glow of good-will, "lemme&mdash;lemme take
+Uncle Ab's job to-night an' get the wood."</p>
+
+<p>Aunt Judith's horrified glance made him redden uncomfortably.</p>
+
+<p>"Jimsy," she whispered hurriedly, "you&mdash;you must never&mdash;never call Mr.
+Sawyer&mdash;Uncle Ab. Nobody does."</p>
+
+<p>"But," mumbled the boy, "ye&mdash;ye said folks call ye Aunt Judith,
+an'&mdash;an'&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"It&mdash;it's different," faltered Aunt Judith. "I&mdash;I'm nobody in
+particular. Mr. Sawyer's a bank president, Jimsy, and I&mdash;I always get
+the wood myself." She opened the door and pointed to a woodpile
+glimmering out of the darkness with a rim of snow. "The kindlings are
+split and piled in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> the shed. And hurry, child. The wind's sharp."</p>
+
+<div class="figright" style="width: 132px;">
+<img src="images/ill_015.jpg" width="132" height="150" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>Jimsy set forth with a noisy whistle. When presently he returned with an
+armful of kindlings, his eyes were shining. And holding the door ajar,
+he coaxed into the warmth of Aunt Judith's kitchen a shivering dog,
+little and lame and thin.</p>
+
+<p>"Aunt Judith," he shrilled, dropping his kindlings into the box with a
+clatter, "look! He was out there under the woodpile, shiverin,' an' he
+won't go away. He's a stray, too, like I was afore Mom Dorgan gave me a
+bed with her kids." He patted the dog's head. "Gee, watch him duck, poor
+mutt! That's cause he's been walloped so much. Aunt Judith," he blurted,
+his gray eyes ablaze with pleading, "can't ye maybe jus' let him sleep
+behind the stove? He's so sort of shivery I&mdash;I feel awful sorry fur
+him."</p>
+
+<p>"No, no, no!" said Aunt Judith in distress. "I can't. I can't, indeed.
+Mr. Sawyer&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"JAMES!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 200px;">
+<img src="images/ill_016.jpg" width="200" height="57" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>Aunt Judith and Jimsy jumped. The first citizen stood in the doorway,
+the Lindon <i>Evening News</i> in his hand, still unread. Nor could he have
+explained why, save that a boy's absence may, queerly enough, be as
+clamorous as his presence. With the biscuit still upon his mind, Abner
+Sawyer felt impelled to discipline.</p>
+
+<p>"Put the dog out!"</p>
+
+<p>Jimsy stood his ground. He was used to that. And Abner Sawyer wondered
+with a feeling of intense annoyance what there was about this ragged,
+noisy child that injected drama into incident. There was a tenseness in
+the silence of the trio and the cringing dog.</p>
+
+<p>"Aw, have a heart!" pleaded Jimsy finally, and there was faith and
+optimism in his steady glance.</p>
+
+<p>Abner Sawyer cleared his throat and looked away. He wondered why he felt
+defensive.</p>
+
+<p>"I am fully equipped with the organ you mention," he said drily. "Put
+the dog out."</p>
+
+<p>Jimsy reluctantly obeyed, and as the door closed upon the shivering
+little<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> waif who scratched and whined at the door of his lost Paradise,
+Jimsy's face, sharpened by disappointment, seemed suddenly thinner and
+less boyish. Bent upon making the best of things, he reached for his
+cap.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he said casually, "guess I'll go out and look the burg over."</p>
+
+<p>It was queer how Jimsy's conversation seemed to bristle with verbal
+shocks. Aunt Judith gasped. Mr. Sawyer fixed a stern eye upon the clock.</p>
+
+<p>"It is eight o'clock," he said in what seemed to Jimsy's puzzled
+comprehension a midnight tone of voice; "you will go to bed."</p>
+
+<p>Dumfounded, Jimsy followed Aunt Judith up to bed. Here in a great,
+old-fashioned bedroom he forgot everything in an eager contemplation of
+a whirling, feathery background to his window.</p>
+
+<p>"Aunt Judith," he called excitedly, "it's snowin'. Gee, that's
+Christmasy, ain't it! I don't mind the snow at all s'long's I got a bed
+cinched." His eager face lengthened. "Wisht Stump had a bed," he
+finished wistfully.</p>
+
+<div class="figright" style="width: 112px;">
+<img src="images/ill_017.jpg" width="112" height="150" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>"Stump?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I jus' called him Stump, Aunt Judith, 'cause he didn't have no tail."
+Aunt Judith's eyes were sympathetic.</p>
+
+<p>But an embarrassing difficulty arose about Jimsy's bed attire which
+drove Stump for a time from his mind. It was solved by a night-shirt of
+first-citizen primness, which trailed upon the carpet and made him
+snigger self-consciously behind his hand until he heard Aunt Judith's
+step again beyond the door, when he vaulted into bed, shivering
+luxuriously in the chill softness of unaccustomed linen.... And then
+Aunt Judith blew out the lamp and tucked him in with hands so tremulous
+and gentle that his throat troubled him again, and he lay very still.
+Meeting her eyes, he suddenly buried his face in the pillow with a gulp
+and a sob, and clung to her hand. Aunt Judith, shaking, caught him
+wildly in her arms, cried very hard, and kissed him good-night. Jimsy,
+Stump and Aunt Judith Sawyer knew variously the meaning of starvation.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 300px;">
+<img src="images/ill_018.jpg" width="300" height="86" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="III" id="III"></a>III</h2>
+
+<h3>THE CHAIN GROWS</h3>
+
+<p>The house grew very still. Jimsy, awaking after a time with the start of
+unfamiliar surroundings, heard the rattle of wind and snow against his
+window. A tree brushed monotonously against the panes&mdash;then through the
+sounds of winter storm came an unmistakable whimper and a howl. The boy
+sat up. Stump! Huddled likely against the door in an agony of faith.
+Jimsy thought of a winter night before Mom Dorgan had taken him in, and
+shivered. The howl came again. Rising, Jimsy opened his door on a crack
+and peered cautiously through it. The hallway was dimly alight from a
+lamp, set, for safety's sake, within a pewter bowl. The house of Sawyer
+slept. Gathering his train in his hand, Jimsy hurried through the hall
+and down the stairs to the lower floor, quite dark now,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> save for barred
+patches of window framing ghostly landscapes. A gust of wind and snow
+whirled in as he unbarred the kitchen door. Then something with an
+ingratiating waggle pushed gladly against his feet. Five seconds later
+Jimsy and Stump were on their way upstairs.</p>
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 134px;">
+<img src="images/ill_019.jpg" width="134" height="150" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>Excitement exacted its toll. Jimsy halted at the second turn in the
+upper hall, his scalp feeling very queer. The lamp had gone out,
+probably in the draft from the kitchen door, and he had lost his room!
+Whispering desperate admonitions to the wriggling dog beneath his arm,
+Jimsy went on tiptoed hunt until, finding a window, a turn and a door
+that seemed familiar, he heaved a great sigh of relief and turned the
+knob. As he pushed back the door, a flood of light and warmth fanned
+out, and Jimsy, tangling his feet in his train as only a small boy
+could, fell headlong into the room, propelling Stump, who yelped with
+fright, at the very feet of Abner Sawyer.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, my Gosh!" yelled Jimsy wildly. "Pinched!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figright" style="width: 130px;">
+<img src="images/ill_020.jpg" width="130" height="150" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>Outraged, the first citizen rose from a bench beside a table and a lamp,
+and Jimsy, scrambling to his feet, a ridiculous figure of apology and
+dismay in his billowing train and sagging shoulders, saw that Mr. Sawyer
+held in his hand a plane and a piece of wood and that the room in which
+he stood was a work-shop perfect in equipment.</p>
+
+<p>"What," demanded Mr. Sawyer in a terrible voice, "what does this mean?
+That dog&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>But Jimsy had not heard.</p>
+
+<p>"Lordy," he breathed, "what a thump-walloper of a shop! Whisht Jack
+Sweeny could see this. My, wouldn't his good eye open! Whatcha makin'?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Sawyer reddened as any man may whose weakness has been unexpectedly
+detected by a boy in an acre of night-shirt.</p>
+
+<p>"No one," he began icily, "<i>no</i> one&mdash;not even Mrs. Sawyer presumes to
+come beyond that threshold"&mdash;he broke off and frowned impatiently,
+feeling his power of aloofness threatened by something in Jimsy's eager
+stare which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> claimed a kinship of interest.... There was an alarming
+suggestion of intimacy anyway in a midnight scene with a tailless dog, a
+boy clad in your own night-shirt&mdash;and an inferential person with an eye
+by the name of Sweeny.... Why did a ridiculous frozen sense of guilt
+impede his tongue now when rebuke was imperative?... Why on earth had a
+look of relief and understanding supplanted the puzzled friendliness of
+Jimsy's supper-time stare?... So might a dog look who had waggled in
+friendly perplexity at the foot of a flawless statue only to find that
+the statue held in its hand a lowly but perfectly comprehensible bone
+... and the dog's attitude of course toward the flawless statue would
+never be quite the same&mdash;nor&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"James," said the first citizen hoarsely, "go to bed!"</p>
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 120px;">
+<img src="images/ill_021.jpg" width="120" height="150" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>"Aw," said James softly, "make it Jimsy. Aunt Judith did. I ain't no
+stiff wit' spinach an' buttons chasin' newsies off the porch."</p>
+
+<p>"Jimsy!" said the first citizen faintly, and felt his world rock about<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span>
+him again. For fate and Jimsy, it was very plain, had filed the word
+away with the biscuit.</p>
+
+<div class="figright" style="width: 300px;">
+<img src="images/ill_022.jpg" width="300" height="78" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>Jimsy's grin was radiant. Upset, Mr. Sawyer turned back to his bench
+with Jimsy at his heels.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Lordy, Lordy," breathed the boy in an ecstasy of admiration.
+"Makin' a Christmas present fur Aunt Judith on the sly, ain't ye? Won't
+she jus' open her eyes! <i>I</i> bet! And polishin' the wood yerself. Gee!"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Sawyer cleared his throat.</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Sawyer and I," said he, "do&mdash;not&mdash;exchange&mdash;gifts&mdash;at Christmas.
+This cabinet is for my private office at the bank."</p>
+
+<p>Jimsy's face fell.</p>
+
+<p>"Aw," he said gently, "seems like ye'd orta give her sumthin' fur
+Christmas. She's so awful good.... B'long to the union?"</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I beg your pardon?"</p>
+
+<p>"Carpenters' union. Jack Sweeny does."</p>
+
+<p>The first citizen froze.</p>
+
+<p>"Carpentering with me," he explained stiffly, "is a fad&mdash;not an
+occupation<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> or a necessity. I," he added "am President of the Lindon
+Bank."</p>
+
+<p>Jimsy's glance was sympathetic. It regretted the world's gain of a bank
+president at the expense of a better carpenter.</p>
+
+<p>"I kin plane," he pleaded eagerly. "Honest Injun, I kin. I kin whittle
+too, like ol' Scratch. Lemme plane this&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I thank you," began Mr. Sawyer coldly, with unfortunate selection of
+words, "but&mdash;" His voice faltered under Jimsy's shining gaze. For,
+reading in the formal repudiation a vote of thanks, Jimsy had seized a
+plane and set to work.</p>
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 300px;">
+<img src="images/ill_023.jpg" width="300" height="87" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>The shavings flew. The clock ticked loudly in the quiet. Outside a
+winter blizzard was sweeping in white fury from the hills. Stump
+crouched silently in a corner, his head upon his paws. And Abner
+Sawyer, returning to his work in helpless indecision, felt his privacy
+and his dignity forever compromised by a boy and a dog. He knew of
+course that a small boy, scantily clad, should not be planing furiously
+on the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> bench beside him at midnight with a sociable gleam in his
+eye&mdash;yet&mdash;something&mdash;a terrible conviction perhaps that if he spoke at
+all his voice would be hoarse and uncertain and his poise threatened by
+the paralyzing sense of apology which welled strangely up within him in
+Jimsy's presence, tied his tongue. The minutes ticked loudly on and the
+shavings flew.... And Jimsy would misinterpret whatever he said in terms
+of sentimentality. He always did.... The clock struck one.... Abner
+Sawyer rose.</p>
+
+<div class="figright" style="width: 124px;">
+<img src="images/ill_024.jpg" width="124" height="150" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>"James&mdash;Jimsy," he said, and his voice was hoarse and uncertain as he
+knew it would be, "you must go to bed."</p>
+
+<p>Jimsy looked up sympathetically.</p>
+
+<p>"Got a cold?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"Frog in your throat?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>Jimsy resigned his plane with a sigh.</p>
+
+<p>"Golly," he laughed, "we'd catch it, wouldn't we&mdash;me and you&mdash;if Aunt
+Judith knew!"</p>
+
+<p>Then he glanced at Stump and said<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> nothing at all. And quite suddenly
+conscience told Abner Sawyer that he could not accept without giving.
+Jimsy had helped him willingly and he had accepted&mdash;why he could not for
+the life of him remember, save that it had something to do with his
+throat and his poise. It did entail obligation of a sort, however, and
+he was a just man. Abner Sawyer did not look at Stump. He blew out the
+light.</p>
+
+<p>In silence the two passed out and closed the door. The episodic
+irregularities of the evening beginning with the Lindon <i>Evening News</i>
+had reached unheard of climax. A mongrel dog was asleep in the warmth of
+the sanctum.</p>
+
+<p>Abner Sawyer had a strangling sense of another link to his biscuit-riven
+chain and passed his hand over his forehead in a dazed and weary way.</p>
+
+<p>"Abner," said Aunt Judith nervously at breakfast, "you&mdash;you don't think
+this once we&mdash;could have&mdash;a&mdash;a Christmas tree for Jimsy?"</p>
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 131px;">
+<img src="images/ill_025.jpg" width="131" height="200" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>"Certainly not!" said Mr. Sawyer coldly.</p>
+
+<p>Aunt Judith's hand trembled a little<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> as she poured the coffee and the
+first citizen waited so long for her usual reply that he thought
+impatiently it would never come. It came at last&mdash;quietly.</p>
+
+<div class="figright" style="width: 300px;">
+<img src="images/ill_026.jpg" width="300" height="75" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>"Just as you&mdash;say, Abner." But the final word was lost in an outraged
+yell from somewhere near the woodpile.</p>
+
+<p>"It&mdash;it must be Jimsy," said Aunt Judith hurriedly. "He&mdash;he was up so
+early I gave him his breakfast. He's shoveling the snow from the
+walks&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Gwan!" came a muffled roar. "Say that again and I'll bust yer face
+good." Sounds of battle and vilifying repartee speedily upset the Sawyer
+breakfast. Abner Sawyer pushed back his chair and strode hastily to the
+kitchen window. He saw concentric circles of fists and snow and a
+yapping dog. He could not know that the defensive section of the
+maelstrom was Specks, the Christmas urchin next door, or that Jimsy and
+Specks settled every controversy under Heaven in a fashion of their own.</p>
+
+<p>The first citizen flung up the window.</p>
+
+<p>"James!" he said in a terrible voice.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The concentric circles wavered&mdash;then whirled dizzily on.</p>
+
+<p>"James!" Too much conventional horror and dignity there to pierce the
+elemental.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Jimsy!</i>" There was sharp informality now that meant business. Jimsy
+upset his freckled antagonist in the snow and wheeled.</p>
+
+<p>"Mister Sawyer," he yelled indignantly, "he went an' said ye was an ol'
+crab&mdash;an' a miser&mdash;an' a skinflint&mdash;an'&mdash;an' a stiff&mdash;an' I blacked his
+eye fur him an' tol' him he lied. An' he went an' said ye didn't have no
+heart or ye wouldn't let Aunt Judith carry in the wood an' do all the
+work an' never git no new clothes&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yi! Yi! Yi! Yi!" derided Specks. "Boney Middleton tol' me&mdash;Boney
+Middleton tol' me. You won't have no tree or nuthin'."</p>
+
+<p>"Didn't I tell ye 'bout the biscuit?" demanded Jimsy fiercely. "An'
+about Stump sleepin' in the work-shop, didn't I? Hain't that enuff?
+Hain't he good to boys an' dogs? I&mdash;I don't want no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> Christmas tree, ye
+big stiff. I'm goin' to have turkey&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>But Abner Sawyer had closed the window with a bang. Although he did not
+look at Aunt Judith he knew that her face was white.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span></p><div class="figcenter" style="width: 200px;">
+<img src="images/ill_027.jpg" width="200" height="187" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 300px;">
+<img src="images/ill_028.jpg" width="300" height="120" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="IV" id="IV"></a>IV</h2>
+
+<h3>THE CHAIN CLANKS</h3>
+
+<p>It was the day before Christmas that the Village Conscience telephoned
+the Lindon Bank.</p>
+
+<p>"I felt that I must call you up, Mr. Sawyer," she said firmly, "and tell
+you that the boy you have with you over Christmas is going around from
+door to door, ringing the bell and&mdash;<i>begging</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>"Begging!"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps I shouldn't call it <i>just</i> that&mdash;but&mdash;well, saying 'Merry
+Christmas!' rather hopefully."</p>
+
+<p>Feeling rather sick, Abner Sawyer formally thanked his informer and rang
+off. Glancing out of his office window he saw with a shock that instead
+of Austin White, who usually drove him home at night, Jimsy and Peggy,
+the old Sawyer mare, were waiting beneath a snow-ridged elm with the
+sleigh. Jimsy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> caught his eye, smiled warmly and waved, and because
+Abner Sawyer did not know what else to do, he stiffly returned the
+salute and reached for his hat, irritably conscious that sufficient
+sleep and food had already left their marks upon his guest. Jimsy's
+cheeks above the old-fashioned tippet Aunt Judith had wound about his
+throat were smooth and ruddy.</p>
+
+<p>"Aunt Judith didn't want me to come," explained Jimsy, "but I tol' her
+how Gink Gunnigan often let me drive his truck an' I guess I coaxed so
+hard she had to.... Unc&mdash;Mister Sawyer, it&mdash;it's nearly Chris'mus eve!"</p>
+
+<p>Abner Sawyer climbed in without a word. Peggy flew off with a jingle of
+bells through the village, through the woods, through a Christmas eve
+twilight dotted now with homely squares of light shining jewel-wise
+among the snowy trees.</p>
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 137px;">
+<img src="images/ill_029.jpg" width="137" height="150" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>"Jimsy!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"A lady telephoned that you'd been&mdash;<i>begging</i>&mdash;from door to door."</p>
+
+<p>Jimsy hung his head.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I only rung some door-bells an' said 'Merry Chris'mus.'"</p>
+
+<p>"You expected and received&mdash;money?"</p>
+
+<p>"Y-e-e-e-e-es, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Why?"</p>
+
+<p>Silence.</p>
+
+<p>"Jimsy, I insist upon an explanation."</p>
+
+<p>Jimsy gulped and faced Abner Sawyer, his eyes blazing with heartbroken
+disappointment through tear-wet lashes.</p>
+
+<p>"Uncle Ab," he choked, "it&mdash;it was a Chris'mus s'prise fur you an' Aunt
+Judith." A great tear rolled slowly down upon the tippet. "I&mdash;I seen a
+book on fancy carpenterin' an' I&mdash;I didn't have no money an'&mdash;an' a
+thimble. It ain't silver, but it's 'mos' as good." And then Jimsy lost
+his moorings with a sob and cried his heart out upon the sleeve of Abner
+Sawyer. "I&mdash;I got the book buttoned under my coat," he blurted after a
+while, "an', Uncle Ab, I'm awful sorry 'bout the door-bells. All the
+fellus do it home&mdash;"</p>
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 300px;">
+<img src="images/ill_030.jpg" width="300" height="90" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>Abner Sawyer would have been less<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> than human if the boy's tragedy had
+not touched him.</p>
+
+<p>"Why," he asked huskily, "why did you wish to give me a Christmas
+present?"</p>
+
+<div class="figright" style="width: 95px;">
+<img src="images/ill_031.jpg" width="95" height="200" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>"Because," cried Jimsy passionately, "yer so awful good to me an' Stump,
+an' so's Aunt Judith. An' I thought mebbe ye'd never had nobuddy ever
+give ye a present an' mean it like I did or&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Or what, Jimsy?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ye'd feel diffrunt 'bout Christmas."</p>
+
+<p>The first citizen took the reins himself, tucked Jimsy in beneath the
+fur robe and drove home in silence, conscious only that the world was
+awry and he hated the Village Conscience. Nor was he quite himself even
+after supper was done and Jimsy, a little tearful still in his
+disappointment, safe in bed.</p>
+
+<p>"Abner&mdash;" began Aunt Judith from her chair by the fire.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes?" said Mr. Sawyer coldly. He wished Judith would not talk. She
+rarely did. He was tired and upset and probing desperately within for
+some remnant of the cold complacence of a week ago.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"The minister was here to-day. He&mdash;he told me how Mrs. Dorgan took Jimsy
+in from the street. She&mdash;drinks. He&mdash;hasn't&mdash;a real&mdash;home. The minister
+would like&mdash;to&mdash;to find one for him."</p>
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 110px;">
+<img src="images/ill_032.jpg" width="110" height="150" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>Jimsy again! He must fling away his chain now or feel it clank.</p>
+
+<p>"That," said Abner Sawyer resentfully, "is of no interest to me."</p>
+
+<p>There was pitiful, hard-wrung bravery in Aunt Judith's face. Only a
+passionate surge of feeling could have swept away the silence and
+repression of the years. Only a woman's emotion, wild and maternal for
+all its starving, inevitable as the law of God, could have leaped a
+barrier so fixed and unrelenting.</p>
+
+<p>"Abner," she said desperately. "I&mdash;I want to keep Jimsy. I&mdash;I can't
+<i>bear</i> to see him go&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Judith!" There was more in the single word of course than Aunt Judith
+could know. There was an unread paper and a biscuit, a tailless dog
+invading sanctity, a yelling boy by a woodpile, and now the memory of a
+twilight<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> ride and the tears of a choking lad upon his sleeve, an
+irritating record of moments of weakness which it behooved a first
+citizen to stamp out of his life forever. Aunt Judith read in his face
+an inexorable death-sentence of her hope and rose, trembling.</p>
+
+<div class="figright" style="width: 128px;">
+<img src="images/ill_033.jpg" width="128" height="150" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>"You are a hard, cold man!" she said, very white. "And the house is so
+lonely I hate it!... I <i>hate</i> it!" quivered Aunt Judith with a long
+shuddering sob; "there's no one to love in it&mdash;no one! And everything
+Specks said to Jimsy was true!"</p>
+
+<p>And then, crying and shaking, she was gone, and Abner Sawyer went with
+stumbling feet to the privacy of his work-shop, his face death-white.
+The pompous illusions of his little world were tumbling to ruins about
+him.</p>
+
+<p>He had said with frequent unction that he was a "hard" man, interpreting
+that phrase liberally in terms of thrift, economy and substantial common
+sense, and his world, through the mouth of an urchin, had flung back to
+him the galling words&mdash;<i>miser</i> and <i>skinflint</i>! They had fawned to his
+face and flouted his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> back, gossiping of servants and made-over gowns
+and kindlings. Up and down the quiet work-shop walked Abner Sawyer,
+clinging in an agony of humiliation to the loyalty of a little
+urchin.... It was all he had, he told himself fiercely, all he had!
+Jimsy alone saw him as he was and liked him.... No heart!... No
+Christmas tree!... No one in the house to love.... He must prove then to
+Specks&mdash;to Jimsy&mdash;to Judith&mdash;to the Middletons&mdash;to all Lindon&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>Turning with hot anger in his heart, he saw a book upon his work-bench;
+and picking it up, Abner Sawyer faced the pitiful fiasco of Jimsy's
+Christmas gift. With a great lump in his throat and his eyes wet he
+glanced at the fly-leaf.</p>
+
+<p>"To Uncle Ab," it said, "from Jimsy. Chrismus gretings."</p>
+
+<p>The door clicked as it had clicked the night before and the night
+before.</p>
+
+<p>"Unc&mdash;Mister Sawyer," said Jimsy sleepily. "I 'mos' forgot to come, I
+was so awful tired an' sleepy.... Ain't&mdash;ain't sick, are ye, Uncle Ab?
+Yer face is awful queer."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I don't know," said the first citizen hoarsely. "I&mdash;I think I am. Go
+to bed, Jimsy, and&mdash;thank&mdash;you&mdash;for the book."</p>
+
+<p>Jimsy went back to bed. He did not know&mdash;nor did Aunt Judith or Abner
+Sawyer that presently he was the sole keeper of the house save Stump
+snoring in the kitchen. For Abner Sawyer was furtively driving Peggy
+into a village that knew him only by repute and Aunt Judith, having
+slipped away in white defiance to Cousin Lemuel's down the road, was
+driving into Lindon with the surreptitious savings of many years in the
+old-fashioned pocket of her gown.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span></p><div class="figcenter" style="width: 158px;">
+<img src="images/ill_034.jpg" width="158" height="200" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 300px;">
+<img src="images/ill_035.jpg" width="300" height="84" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="V" id="V"></a>V</h2>
+
+<h3>THE PROVING</h3>
+
+<p>The clock struck six. It was Christmas morning! Jimsy awoke with the
+thought of turkey uppermost in his mind, to find Aunt Judith by his bed,
+a wonderful look of Christmas, he thought, in her gentle face.</p>
+
+<p>"Dress quickly, Jimsy," she whispered, "and don't make a sound&mdash;not a
+sound! I'll wait outside by the door. It&mdash;it's a Christmas secret that
+nobody but you and I must know."</p>
+
+<p>Jimsy tumbled into his clothes and opened the door.</p>
+
+<p>"W-w-w-w-what is it, Aunt Judith?" he whispered.</p>
+
+<p>But for answer Aunt Judith only hurried him in a flutter to the
+sewing-room, safe this many a year from the measured tread of
+first-citizen feet, and closed the door.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Aunt Judith!" gulped the boy. "Aunt Judith!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>A Christmas tree winked and rainbowed glory in a window by the eaves,
+everything beneath its tinselled branches that the heart of boy could
+wish. The radiance in Jimsy's eyes brought Aunt Judith to her knees
+beside him, her sweet, tired eyes wet with tears of pleasure.</p>
+
+<p>"You like it, Jimsy?" she whispered. "You're sure you like it, dear?"</p>
+
+<p>Jimsy buried his face on Aunt Judith's shoulder with a strangled sob of
+excitement and delight.</p>
+
+<p>"Aunt Judith," he blurted, "I&mdash;I can't 'mos' tell ye what I think."</p>
+
+<p>Aunt Judith's arms clung tightly to him.</p>
+
+<p>"Cousin Lemuel helped me," she whispered. "The house was dark and Mr.
+Sawyer in bed. There wasn't even a light in the work-shop. We tiptoed up
+and down the back-stairs. You mustn't breathe a word of it, Jimsy! Not a
+word! It's for you and me."</p>
+
+<p>Jimsy sighed.</p>
+
+<div class="figright" style="width: 126px;">
+<img src="images/ill_036.jpg" width="126" height="150" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>"Whisht," he said, "whisht Uncle Ab believed in Chris'mus."</p>
+
+<p>Aunt Judith kissed him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Bless your heart, Jimsy," she said bravely. "So do I."</p>
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 126px;">
+<img src="images/ill_037.jpg" width="126" height="150" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>But even bewildering hours with gifts and trees must come to an end, and
+presently Aunt Judith and Jimsy went down hand in hand to attend to the
+fire and breakfast.... And the opening of the sitting-room door froze
+Aunt Judith Sawyer to the threshold, her face whitely unbelieving.
+Something was wrong with the primness of the sitting-room&mdash;something in
+evergreen and tinsel and a hundred candles that showered Christmas from
+its boughs&mdash;something was wrong with Abner Sawyer&mdash;up and waiting by the
+window, his face twisted into a faint and sickly smile of apology.</p>
+
+<p>For now that he was in the very heart of his "proving" he did not know
+what on earth to do. Dignity?... It was hopelessly out of the question.
+With a monument to his midnight guilt blazing there in the corner&mdash;with
+Christmas wreaths hung in the windows to confound the Middletons&mdash;he
+must face the music. Feeling very foolish, he cleared his throat and
+essayed to speak,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> paralyzed into silence again by the unexpected
+evolution of a hoarse croak so horribly un-first-citizen that it
+frightened him.</p>
+
+<div class="figright" style="width: 119px;">
+<img src="images/ill_038.jpg" width="119" height="150" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>Jimsy broke the staring silence.</p>
+
+<p>"Uncle Ab," he quivered, "ye never&mdash;ye never went an' done all that fur
+me!"</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I don't know," said Abner Sawyer, swallowing very hard. "I&mdash;I think
+I did."</p>
+
+<p>"When," faltered Aunt Judith from the doorway, "did you&mdash;do it?"</p>
+
+<p>"It must have been after midnight. I came in very quietly. The ride was
+long&mdash;I went to Matsville. You must have been in bed asleep&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Jimsy embarked upon a handspring of celebration.</p>
+
+<p>"Two trees!" he shouted, caution quite forgotten in his wild excitement,
+"two suits of clothes&mdash;two everything! Oh, my gosh, Specks ain't in it.
+I'm the Christmas kid!" and then in a panic he was on his feet again,
+his face hot and red. "Aunt Judith," he exclaimed, almost crying, "I'm
+awfully sorry&mdash;"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Aunt Judith's tremulous laugh seemed tears and silver.</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind, dear. It's all right now. Abner," she swallowed bravely,
+"one of&mdash;one of Jimsy's Christmas trees is in the sewing-room. I&mdash;I'd
+like you to see it."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span></p><div class="figcenter" style="width: 210px;">
+<img src="images/ill_039.jpg" width="210" height="300" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 300px;">
+<img src="images/ill_040.jpg" width="300" height="84" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="VI" id="VI"></a>VI</h2>
+
+<h3>THE TRIUMPH</h3>
+
+<p>Specks reviewed the Christmas tree in the sitting-room after breakfast
+and looked upset. It was bigger than his own.</p>
+
+<p>"Got one downstairs, too," crowed Jimsy. "Uncle Ab," he added, "he sort
+o' wanted it to be awful Christmasy through the whole house, an'&mdash;an'
+Jiminy Crickets, Specks, it is!"</p>
+
+<p>"Uncle Ab&mdash;who's Uncle Ab?"</p>
+
+<p>"Uncle Ab Sawyer." Jimsy bristled. "What ye got to say about it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nuthin'."</p>
+
+<p>"Did <i>you</i> get <i>two</i> trees, Specks?"</p>
+
+<p>"Naw. Hain't many folks did, I guess. 'Tain't nuthin' to crow about,
+anyway."</p>
+
+<p>"Huh! Thought ye said the Middletons was more Christmasy'n us."</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't."</p>
+
+<p>"Ye did."</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Ye did, too, and I walloped ye fur it. I'll wallop ye again if ye say
+ye didn't."</p>
+
+<p>"Jimsy!" Aunt Judith's gentle voice put an end to controversy. An
+armistice was pledged.</p>
+
+<div class="figright" style="width: 124px;">
+<img src="images/ill_041.jpg" width="124" height="150" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>"Did ye get skates, Specks?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nope."</p>
+
+<p>"Gosh, I'm sorry fur that. I got two pairs. Mebbe&mdash;Aunt Judith?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Jimsy?"</p>
+
+<p>"Would ye mebbe mind me givin' Specks a pair o' skates? Mr. Middleton he
+ain't so Christmasy as you an' Uncle Ab&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Specks swallowed hard and accepted this and the skates. But he could not
+forbear at least one shaft of triumph.</p>
+
+<p>"I got a sled, Jimsy!"</p>
+
+<p>"Huh!" said Jimsy. "So did I. Two of 'em."</p>
+
+<p>It was too much. The street urchin in Specks came to the fore in a
+mighty wave of envy.</p>
+
+<p>"Gawd!" he gulped.</p>
+
+<p>Jimsy glowered.</p>
+
+<p>"Hey!" he whispered fiercely "Hain't ye got no decency?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Specks blushed apology and departed.</p>
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 124px;">
+<img src="images/ill_042.jpg" width="124" height="150" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>Later, Jimsy reviewed the Sawyer turkey with a reverential glisten in
+his eye.</p>
+
+<p>"Specks!" he yelled from the kitchen window. "Yi, Specksy!"</p>
+
+<p>"What d'ye want?"</p>
+
+<p>"Come over an' see the turkey."</p>
+
+<p>"Y'ain't got two, have ye?" demanded Specks with suspicion.</p>
+
+<p>"Naw," said Jimsy. "One's enuff. This un's bigger'n the turkey Pete
+Googan raffled off last Christmas eve."</p>
+
+<p>So Specks returned to envy&mdash;for the house of Sawyer had outdone the
+house of Middleton once more&mdash;and Jimsy in a glow of noisy delight led
+him to rows of pies and a barrel of ruddy apples&mdash;to celery and
+tarts&mdash;to fruit cake and cranberries and simmering vegetables&mdash;in short
+to every home-keeping kitchen device for filling a country house with
+the odor of Christmas and the promise of good cheer. The Sawyer kitchen
+to-day was a wonderful place of shine and spice. Even Aunt Judith felt
+the nameless something in the air, for her cheeks were faintly pink and
+the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> hand that smoothed her snowy apron trembled ever so little.
+Christmas had not come so this many a year.</p>
+
+<p>But Specks departed this time with a furtive air of triumph.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Middleton ain't no stiff," he announced. "<i>He's</i> goin' out on the
+hill coastin' with me this afternoon&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"S-s-s-s-h!" whispered Jimsy fiercely. "D'ye want Aunt Judith to hear
+ye? I git awful sick o' wallopin' you, Specks, but lemme hear ye say
+that again an' I'll baste ye good."</p>
+
+<p>The kitchen door swung back. Specks paled, as well he might. The first
+citizen stood in the doorway, his mouth set.</p>
+
+<p>"Jimsy," he said, clearing his throat. "Get your sled, my boy. We'd
+better try it out before dinner."</p>
+
+<p>It was a challenge to the Middletons, of course, but afterwards, in a
+wild moment of panic, Abner Sawyer felt that he would have retracted at
+any cost had it not been for the wonderful glow in Jimsy's face. He felt
+a little sick.... God help him, he liked Jimsy! He wanted to please
+him!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 300px;">
+<img src="images/ill_043.jpg" width="300" height="87" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="VII" id="VII"></a>VII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE DOWNFALL</h3>
+
+<p>The Lindon hill was full of watchers. That in itself was disconcerting.
+Wild spirits gather in the snow on Christmas morning. And it was, of
+course, like Jimsy to fling himself suddenly upon his sled with a whoop
+and go flying down the hill through the snow fleet, yelling wildly, but
+Abner Sawyer wished he had made his d&eacute;but a trifle less conspicuously.
+For it brought all eyes to Abner Sawyer himself standing stiffly upon
+the hill-top not quite sure of his ground. A neighbor or so eyed him in
+polite surprise and nodded; a child fastened round eyes upon his silk
+hat and he wished he had left it at home. But Christmas was no more
+Christmas than Sunday was Sunday without this formal head-piece, and
+besides, it had been his sole concession to the horrified stir of
+dignity within him when Jimsy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> had appeared upon the walk beside him
+dragging his sled. What on earth was he doing here anyway in the rough
+and tumble sport of a Christmas morning!</p>
+
+<p>Yells of greeting followed Jimsy's meteoric flight down the hillside.
+Everybody seemed to know and like him, and Jimsy, as ever, was noisily
+responsive. Yes, he was more a part of this village of Lindon than the
+first citizen himself standing aloof upon the hill-top, and the first
+citizen had spent his life in Lindon. Abner Sawyer felt hurt and alone.
+He had slipped in an unwary moment from his wound-proof armor of
+conscious superiority and in this world of friends outside it, there was
+more room for Jimsy than there was for him. Small comfort, after all,
+the solitude of greatness!</p>
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 111px;">
+<img src="images/ill_044.jpg" width="111" height="150" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>The first citizen frowned impatiently. What was it all about, anyway, he
+wondered hopelessly. Did he want to be one of that yelling, shoving,
+jostling crowd? Surely not! His dignity rose in revolt at the very
+thought of it. Did he hunger for Jimsy's supreme gift of adaptability?
+Why should this fierce<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> new hunger for one friendly, honest,
+heart-warming smile of liking and welcome gnaw at his heart?... Why&mdash;God
+help him!&mdash;why was he a stranger in his own town?</p>
+
+<div class="figright" style="width: 300px;">
+<img src="images/ill_045.jpg" width="300" height="71" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>"The world is all wrong," said Abner Sawyer, a little white; "I am not
+myself." And for a wild moment his sore heart flamed again at Jimsy's
+revolutionizing intrusion into the quiet smugness of his life.</p>
+
+<p>Jimsy's quick, eager little smile of greeting as he came up the hill
+again warmed the pang away&mdash;it was so full of good-fellowship and
+understanding.</p>
+
+<p>"Ever go belly-whopper, Uncle Ab?" he demanded radiantly.</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I scarcely think so," said the first citizen.</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I don't like to belly-whop down the hill with you standin' up here
+alone," said Jimsy shyly. "Why don't ye go down just once with me, Uncle
+Ab? Then if ye like it, we'll just have one thump-walloper of a time!"</p>
+
+<p>"No, no, Jimsy," said the first citizen. "I&mdash;I can't do that&mdash;" and then
+for the first time he met the amused<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> eyes of Hiram Middleton and
+Specks.</p>
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 300px;">
+<img src="images/ill_046.jpg" width="300" height="77" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>So they had followed to the hill&mdash;incredulous and curious! A wave of
+anger swept Abner Sawyer into indiscretion.</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I'll go with you once, Jimsy," he said, and Jimsy's round little
+face glowed.</p>
+
+<p>So the first citizen seated himself stiffly on the sled behind Jimsy,
+wondering what on earth to do with his legs. They seemed to have
+lengthened mysteriously and they looked astonishingly thin. Jimsy gave a
+wild Indian whoop of warning and the sled hurtled off down the hill,
+with the first citizen, unbelievably stiff-legged and frightened,
+clinging to his hat.</p>
+
+<p>His emotions were panoramic. There was panic first at his lost
+dignity&mdash;then wonder at their speed, but most of all his legs bothered
+him&mdash;his legs and his hat. He wished Jimsy would quit yelling. Yet for
+all he tried he could not bring himself to say so.</p>
+
+<p>"Ki-yi-yi-yi-whoop!" sang Jimsy, steering. Abner Sawyer gulped.
+Everybody on the hill, of course, was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> staring; his coat-tails were
+flying dizzily behind him. There would be a scandal and the directors
+of the Lindon Bank might even meet and call him to account. Small
+blame to them. Abner Sawyer mentally sketched a caricature of
+himself&mdash;coat-tails, legs and all&mdash;and Heaven help him!&mdash;lost his hat.
+He emitted a feeble croak of dismay. Jimsy looking back steered into a
+snow-bank and dumped the president of the Lindon Bank out upon the hill.</p>
+
+<p>"Gosh Almighty, Uncle Ab," he yelled, "I'm awful sorry. I seen your lid
+go&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind, Jimsy," said the first citizen, sitting up, "never
+mind&mdash;I&mdash;I really shouldn't have worn such a wind-catcher to&mdash;to
+belly-whop in&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He sat very stiff amid the ruins of the snow-bank. Jimsy grinned.</p>
+
+<p>"Ye ain't really done no belly-whoppin' yet," he said.</p>
+
+<div class="figright" style="width: 119px;">
+<img src="images/ill_047.jpg" width="119" height="150" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>And now for the first time Abner Sawyer realized that everybody on the
+hill had come running at Jimsy's yell to see if he was hurt.... One was
+brushing him off ... another had rescued his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> hat with a horrible
+un-first-citizen dent in it and a lump of snow on the brim ... and they
+weren't shocked ... they weren't laughing.... Why on earth should there
+be friendliness now in their gaze when he had seemed so far away from
+them standing up there on the hill? No scandalized amazement here at the
+downfall of Lindon's pride ... he was somehow closer to them all.</p>
+
+<p>It was Aunt Polly Magee, the self-appointed mother of the village, who
+finally stood the first citizen upon his feet and brushed the snow from
+his back.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear me," she said, "that was a spill. When ye went down ye seemed
+'mos' as leggy as a spider. Next time ye go coastin', Ab, ye'd better
+not wear your Sunday hat. 'Tain't no better'n a kite when it comes to
+wind."</p>
+
+<p>Abner Sawyer's smile was vague and apologetic, but there was a fierce,
+wild joy in his heart that he didn't try to understand. He was glad he
+had lost his hat&mdash;he was glad he had fallen into the snow-bank&mdash;and he
+was glad Aunt Polly Magee had called him Ab for the first time in thirty
+years!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 300px;">
+<img src="images/ill_048.jpg" width="300" height="82" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="VIII" id="VIII"></a>VIII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE CHAIN IS LOCKED</h3>
+
+<p>Like a rainbow blur fled the Sawyer Christmas, punctuated with the yells
+and bangs of boyhood. From dawn to bed it was a triumph.</p>
+
+<p>"Jimsy," said the first citizen at dusk, "has it&mdash;has it been what you'd
+call a&mdash;a walloper-thump&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Thump-walloper," corrected Jimsy.</p>
+
+<p>"Thump-walloper of a day?"</p>
+
+<p>Jimsy's reply was ecstatic.</p>
+
+<p>"I 'mos' always forget," he added ruefully. "Aunt Judith said I mustn't
+call ye Uncle Ab. Which d'ye like best, Uncle Ab? Mister Sawyer or Uncle
+Ab?"</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I think," said the first citizen with a gulp, "that I like Uncle Ab
+a little better."</p>
+
+<p>"So do I," said Jimsy.</p>
+
+<p>With a wind-beaten flutter of wings, Jimsy's Christmas fled at
+midnight.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> Dawn grayed bleakly over the Sawyer home, and there came an
+hour when Peggy waited to carry Jimsy to the station. Nervous and
+irritable&mdash;why he did not know save that time was crowding and he must
+deliver Jimsy to the minister in time for the 8.32, Abner Sawyer strode
+resolutely to the kitchen door. But he did not summon Jimsy. Instead he
+turned a little white.</p>
+
+<div class="figright" style="width: 116px;">
+<img src="images/ill_049.jpg" width="116" height="150" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>It was a common enough sight&mdash;a woman clinging to a child and
+crying&mdash;but Abner Sawyer was conscious of a swelling mutiny in his
+throat and a blur to his vision.</p>
+
+<p>"Do-o-o-on't cry, Aunt Judith!" gulped Jimsy courageously. "I'll be as
+good as I know how. An' you'll be awful good to Stump, won't ye, Aunt
+Judith? He's lame an'&mdash;an' he's had a fierce life."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;yes&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"An' tell Uncle Austin White I sent him good-by."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Jimsy."</p>
+
+<p>"An'&mdash;an' write me every week 'bout ol' Peggy an' Uncle Ab an'&mdash;an' you,
+Aunt Judith. Don't forget&mdash;"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Everything, dear!"</p>
+
+<p>"Go-o-o-oby, Aunt Judith!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Jimsy! Jimsy!"</p>
+
+<p>Abner Sawyer fled to his wagon with his hands upon his ears. It was the
+wildest sobbing he had ever heard. When Jimsy came, at last, looking
+very red and swollen, the first citizen was staring straight ahead.</p>
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 300px;">
+<img src="images/ill_050.jpg" width="300" height="72" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>Peggy finished at the station almost neck and neck with the train. The
+minister spoke to Mr. Sawyer and rushed Jimsy up the steps. A bell
+clanged. There was much noise and puffing and the train was under way.
+Jimsy, wildly remembering his good-by to Uncle Ab, flung up the train
+window and waved a frantic hand.</p>
+
+<p>Then something happened.</p>
+
+<p>A shaking hand touched the baggage-master.</p>
+
+<p>"Stop the train!" said Abner Sawyer harshly. He was deathly white.
+"It&mdash;it is important. I will pay if necessary."</p>
+
+<p>It was unprecedented, but, thoroughly rural in his taste for sensation,
+the baggage-master leaped to the bottom step<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> of the nearest car and
+spoke to a brakeman. The brakeman glanced at the first citizen with
+respect. There was a hissing noise and a jerk. When the train rumbled to
+a stop again under the startled eyes of Lindon, Abner Sawyer was already
+striding up the aisle. With the intelligent eyes of the young minister
+upon him, he snatched Jimsy roughly from the seat, carried him down the
+aisle&mdash;down the steps&mdash;and over the platform to Peggy.</p>
+
+<p>"W-what is it, Uncle Ab?" faltered the boy. "Did I&mdash;did I forget
+something?"</p>
+
+<p>Abner Sawyer felt the boy's warm young cheek against his face and a
+great lump welled up in his throat. Something hot stung his eyes. The
+clasp of his arms tightened.</p>
+
+<p>"Jimsy," he said huskily, "you said I ought to give Aunt Judith a
+Christmas present, and I'm going to give her&mdash;<i>you</i>!"</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Jimsy, by Leona Dalrymple
+
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+</pre>
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+</body>
+</html>
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@@ -0,0 +1,1737 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Jimsy, by Leona Dalrymple
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Jimsy
+       The Christmas Kid
+
+Author: Leona Dalrymple
+
+Illustrator: Charles Guischard
+
+Release Date: February 18, 2009 [EBook #28110]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JIMSY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Annie McGuire
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Jimsy
+
+The Christmas Kid
+
+
+By
+
+Leona Dalrymple
+
+Author of "The Lovable Meddler," "Diane
+of the Green Van," "Uncle Noah's
+Christmas Party," etc.
+
+
+Decorations by
+Charles Guischard
+
+
+New York
+Robert M. McBride & Company
+1915
+
+
+Copyright, 1915, by
+Robert M. McBride & Co.
+Published October, 1915
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+  CHAPTER                                                             PAGE
+
+     I The Invasion                                                      9
+
+    II The Biscuit Link                                                 19
+
+   III The Chain Grows                                                  27
+
+    IV The Chain Clanks                                                 38
+
+     V The Proving                                                      46
+
+    VI The Triumph                                                      51
+
+   VII The Downfall                                                     55
+
+  VIII The Chain is Locked                                              61
+
+
+
+
+Jimsy
+
+The Christmas Kid
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+I
+
+THE INVASION
+
+
+His name was Jimsy and he took it for granted that you liked him. That
+made things difficult from the very start--that and the fact that he
+arrived in the village two days before Christmas strung to such a
+holiday pitch of expectation that, if you were a respectable,
+bewhiskered first citizen like Jimsy's host, you felt the cut-and-dried
+dignity of a season which unflinching thrift had taught you to pare of
+all its glittering non-essentials, threatened by his bubbling air of
+faith in something wonderful to happen.
+
+He had arrived at twilight, just as the first citizen was about to read
+his evening paper, and he had made a great deal of noise, yelling back
+at old Austin White, whose sleigh had conveyed him from the station to
+the house, a "S'long, Uncle!" pregnant with the friendliness of a
+conversational ride. He had scraped away his snow-heels with a somewhat
+sustained noise, born perhaps of shyness, and now, as he stood in the
+center of the prim, old-fashioned room, a thin, eager youngster not too
+warmly clad for the bite of the New England wind, Abner Sawyer felt with
+a sense of shock that this city urchin whom Judith had promised to
+"Christmas," detracted, in some ridiculous manner, from the
+respectability of the room. He was an inharmonious note in its staid
+preciseness. Moreover, it was evident from the frank friendliness of his
+dark, gray eyes that he was perniciously of that type who frolic through
+a frosty, first-citizen aura of informality and give and accept
+friendship as a matter of course.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"What--what is your name?" asked the first citizen, peering over his
+spectacles. He wished that Judith's Christmas protege was not so thin
+and a trifle larger.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Jimsy," answered the boy. "An' Specks, he's me chum; he goes to Mister
+Middleton's, next door."
+
+Specks and Jimsy! The first citizen helplessly cleared his throat and
+summoned Judith.
+
+She came in a spotless apron no whiter than her hair. She was
+spare--Aunt Judith Sawyer--spare and patient as the wife of a provident
+man may well be who sees no need for servants, and her primness was of a
+gentler, vaguer sort than that of Abner Sawyer. Jimsy glanced up into
+her sweet, tired face and his eager eyes claimed her with a bewildering
+smile of welcome. Then because Jimsy's experience with clean aprons and
+trimly parted hair was negligible almost to the point of non-existence,
+it became instantly imperative that he should polish the toe of one worn
+shoe with the sole of the other and study the result and Aunt Judith
+with furtive interest.
+
+"Judith," said the first citizen, not wholly at his ease,
+"Mr.--er--ah--Mr. Jimsy has arrived."
+
+Jimsy snickered.
+
+"Naw, naw, nix!" he said. "Jimsy's the handle. I'm a stray, I am. Hain't
+got no folks. Mom Dorgan says ye have to have folks to have a
+bunch-name. I'm the Christmas kid."
+
+"To be sure you are," said Aunt Judith gently, "to be sure. And where
+are your things?"
+
+Jimsy's thin little face reddened.
+
+"Hain't only got one rig," he mumbled, "an' that warn't fitten to wear.
+Mom Dorgan borried these duds fur me. She--she's awful good that way
+when she's sober."
+
+There was wistful eagerness in his face to do his best by the one friend
+who helped him.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Quite unconscious of the scandalized flutter in this quiet room whose
+oval portraits of ancestral Sawyers might well have tumbled down at the
+notion of any one being anything but sober, the boy moved closer to the
+fire as if the ride had chilled him.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Gee!" he said with a long, quivering breath, "ain't that a fire, now,
+ain't it!" and because his keen young eyes could not somehow be evaded,
+Abner Sawyer accepted the responsibility of the reply and said hastily
+that it was. Then feeling his dignity imperilled in the presence of
+Judith, though why he could not for the life of him explain, he moved
+forward a chair for the Christmas guest and returned to his paper.
+
+Aunt Judith went back to a region of tinkling china and humming kettle.
+The room became quiet enough for any one to read, but the first citizen
+somehow could not read. He was ridiculously conscious of that tense
+little figure by the fire with the disturbingly friendly eyes. How on
+earth could a boy be noisy who was absolutely quiet? Yet his very
+presence seemed to clamor--the clamor of an inherent sociability
+repressed with difficulty.
+
+Jimsy glanced at the checkerboard window beyond which snowy hills lay
+beneath a sunset afterglow.
+
+"Gee whiz!" he burst forth. "_Ain't_ the snow white!"
+
+The first citizen jumped--much as one may jump when he has waited in
+nerve-racking suspense for a pistol shot. The boy had done exactly what
+he had expected him to do--broken that sacred ante-prandial hour with
+the Lindon _Evening News_ which Judith had not broken this twenty years.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Snow," he said discouragingly, for all he had determined to ignore the
+remark, "snow is always white."
+
+Jimsy shook his head.
+
+"Naw," he said. "N'York snow's gray an' dirty. Specks said the snow we
+seen on the hills from the train winder was Christmas card snow, and
+with that the minister he up an' tells Specks an' me 'bout reg'lar
+old-fashioned country Christmases, fire like this an' Christmas trees
+an'--an' sleigh-bells an' gifts an' wreaths an' skatin' an'
+holly--Gee--"
+
+"That," said Abner Sawyer with cold finality, "will be quite enough."
+
+"Sure," agreed Jimsy. "A Christmas like that 'snuff fur any kid."
+
+Irritably conscious that his reproof had been misinterpreted, the first
+citizen riveted his gaze upon the Lindon _Evening News_. But he could
+not read. Jimsy's irreverent air of friendliness was not the only
+disturbing factor in his Christmasing. Jimsy, plainly, was cherishing
+expectations.
+
+Conscious-driven, Abner Sawyer laid aside his paper.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"James," he began primly, "I must take this occasion to inform you that
+Mrs. Sawyer and I spend Christmas quietly--very quietly. We have never
+had a Christmas tree, and personally I consider that holly is most
+suitable and decorative where Nature planted it. Christmas," finished
+Mr. Sawyer, slightly disconcerted by Jimsy's attentive stare, "Christmas
+is merely a day and a dinner. Let the frivolous make of it an orgy of
+sentimentality if they will."
+
+Jimsy's face fell.
+
+"Gee!" he said, "your Christmas ain't just an extra Sunday, is it?"
+
+Shocked, Abner Sawyer glinted over the tops of his glasses.
+
+"No," he said with an effort, "it--it is somewhat different."
+
+"How's it different?"
+
+"I"--the first citizen froze--"I hardly know."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"What d'ye have that ye don't have Sundays?"
+
+"I--I believe it's turkey," conceded Mr. Sawyer desperately, and feeling
+his dignity hopelessly compromised by a dialogue of such pronounced
+informality, returned to his paper.
+
+"Gee!" said Jimsy, with a sigh of relief, "that's mos' enuff itself to
+make a Christmas. Hain't never tasted turkey." He was silent a minute,
+in which the clock ticked loudly. It was purple now beyond the
+old-fashioned panes and the lamp seemed brighter. Jimsy's shrill young
+voice broke the quiet, as it would, of course, be sure to do.
+
+"Say," he said kindly, "don't you worry none about that there Christmas
+tree an' no holly. We'll have a thump-walloper of a day, anyhow!"
+
+It is conceivable that Abner Sawyer's experience with thump-wallopers
+had been limited. There was something in the boy's words, however, that
+brought his gaze over the top of his spectacles again and over his
+paper. It was disconcerting to note that Jimsy still bristled with
+faith and friendliness and cheerful expectation.
+
+"My remark," he said coldly, "about the absence of a tree and holly was
+a statement--not an apology."
+
+"Don't get ye," admitted Jimsy. "Come again." And there was danger of a
+mutual dead-lock of comprehension. Aunt Judith saved the day. Arriving
+in the doorway with a flutter, she said that supper was ready and that
+James had better wash his face and hands. And James, who was Jimsy,
+meeting Aunt Judith's gentle eyes, turned scarlet, and stumbling to his
+feet, he stepped, en route, upon the stately toe of Lindon's pride.
+
+"Gee!" he burst forth contritely. "I'm awful sorry, honest Injun I am.
+Spoiled yer shine, didn't I? An' it was a beaut, too!"
+
+Could even a first citizen rebuke such eager apology? Better to stay
+within the certain shelter of a chilling silence.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Abner Sawyer rose, but even as he did so his world of law and order
+seemed to rock in chaos about his feet. He was going out to supper--and
+he had not read a single line in the Lindon _Evening News_!
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+II
+
+THE BISCUIT LINK
+
+It was at supper that the terrible realization came to Abner Sawyer that
+Jimsy liked everything and _every one_ rather too well. He liked the ham
+and he liked the biscuits, he accepted alarming quantities of marmalade
+with utter confidence in his digestion; his round eyes swept every nook
+of the prim old room and marveled at old-fashioned china and silver that
+might have come over in the _Mayflower_, and then again might not, and
+he continued irreverently unaware that the first citizen was president
+of the Lindon Bank and therefore not a person to be liked
+indiscriminately by urchins. Thanks to something in Aunt Judith's eyes,
+furtively concessional to boyhood, Jimsy had mislaid what little
+constraint and shyness he had had at first. His at-homeness might be
+gauged at a glance by the way he gazed at the biscuits.
+
+"Dear me," said Aunt Judith, glancing from Jimsy to the biscuits to see
+which most threatened the other, "I--I scarcely think--I hardly know.
+Abner?"
+
+Time, Abner, now to impress this urchin once for all with a show of
+power in terms he can understand!
+
+Mr. Sawyer settled the trivial question of biscuits with dignity.
+
+"James," he said. "You may have just _one_ more biscuit."
+
+And Aunt Judith nodded:
+
+"Just as you say, my dear!" as she had been nodding effasively for
+thirty years.
+
+Jimsy's eyes were very grateful and it came over the first citizen with
+sickening conviction that Jimsy, misinterpreting again, had regarded the
+biscuit as an overture instead of a show of power. Ridiculous indeed to
+have thrown about your neck the unwelcome chain of a boy's regard and
+then unintentionally to cement that chain--by a biscuit!
+
+Abner Sawyer departed hastily for his lamp, his fire and his paper.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Jimsy followed Aunt Judith to the kitchen and here, in the shining
+quiet of an old-fashioned kitchen whose spotless rows of pans and its
+rocker by the window reflected nothing of first citizenship, the
+memory-making mystery of child and woman in a homely setting drew taut
+an age-old chord of sympathy. Out of the hum of the kettle and the
+fire-shadows of the grate it came, out of the winter wind that rattled
+the checkerpaned windows--that eternal something that is only given to
+women to understand. Jimsy did not know why Aunt Judith smiled or why
+the smile made his throat hurt a little. He only knew by her eyes that
+she liked him and that was enough.
+
+"Aunt Judith," he blurted, "lemme--aw, lemme wipe your dishes."
+
+But Aunt Judith, with the wisdom of women, knew that the best-behaved
+china is perversely given to leaping without warning out of the hands of
+any boy, to his utter consternation, and she patted him on the back.
+
+"Bless your heart, Jimsy," she said, "there are so few I can do them
+myself in no time."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Jimsy!--not James! Jimsy felt that he must do something for Aunt Judith
+Sawyer or his throat would burst. So finding one leg at liberty, he
+furtively kicked the leg of the stove and hurt his toe, even as his eyes
+fell upon a depleted stock of kindlings in the wood-box.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Well, then," he burst out in a glow of good-will, "lemme--lemme take
+Uncle Ab's job to-night an' get the wood."
+
+Aunt Judith's horrified glance made him redden uncomfortably.
+
+"Jimsy," she whispered hurriedly, "you--you must never--never call Mr.
+Sawyer--Uncle Ab. Nobody does."
+
+"But," mumbled the boy, "ye--ye said folks call ye Aunt Judith,
+an'--an'--"
+
+"It--it's different," faltered Aunt Judith. "I--I'm nobody in
+particular. Mr. Sawyer's a bank president, Jimsy, and I--I always get
+the wood myself." She opened the door and pointed to a woodpile
+glimmering out of the darkness with a rim of snow. "The kindlings are
+split and piled in the shed. And hurry, child. The wind's sharp."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Jimsy set forth with a noisy whistle. When presently he returned with an
+armful of kindlings, his eyes were shining. And holding the door ajar,
+he coaxed into the warmth of Aunt Judith's kitchen a shivering dog,
+little and lame and thin.
+
+"Aunt Judith," he shrilled, dropping his kindlings into the box with a
+clatter, "look! He was out there under the woodpile, shiverin,' an' he
+won't go away. He's a stray, too, like I was afore Mom Dorgan gave me a
+bed with her kids." He patted the dog's head. "Gee, watch him duck, poor
+mutt! That's cause he's been walloped so much. Aunt Judith," he blurted,
+his gray eyes ablaze with pleading, "can't ye maybe jus' let him sleep
+behind the stove? He's so sort of shivery I--I feel awful sorry fur
+him."
+
+"No, no, no!" said Aunt Judith in distress. "I can't. I can't, indeed.
+Mr. Sawyer--"
+
+"JAMES!"
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Aunt Judith and Jimsy jumped. The first citizen stood in the doorway,
+the Lindon _Evening News_ in his hand, still unread. Nor could he have
+explained why, save that a boy's absence may, queerly enough, be as
+clamorous as his presence. With the biscuit still upon his mind, Abner
+Sawyer felt impelled to discipline.
+
+"Put the dog out!"
+
+Jimsy stood his ground. He was used to that. And Abner Sawyer wondered
+with a feeling of intense annoyance what there was about this ragged,
+noisy child that injected drama into incident. There was a tenseness in
+the silence of the trio and the cringing dog.
+
+"Aw, have a heart!" pleaded Jimsy finally, and there was faith and
+optimism in his steady glance.
+
+Abner Sawyer cleared his throat and looked away. He wondered why he felt
+defensive.
+
+"I am fully equipped with the organ you mention," he said drily. "Put
+the dog out."
+
+Jimsy reluctantly obeyed, and as the door closed upon the shivering
+little waif who scratched and whined at the door of his lost Paradise,
+Jimsy's face, sharpened by disappointment, seemed suddenly thinner and
+less boyish. Bent upon making the best of things, he reached for his
+cap.
+
+"Well," he said casually, "guess I'll go out and look the burg over."
+
+It was queer how Jimsy's conversation seemed to bristle with verbal
+shocks. Aunt Judith gasped. Mr. Sawyer fixed a stern eye upon the clock.
+
+"It is eight o'clock," he said in what seemed to Jimsy's puzzled
+comprehension a midnight tone of voice; "you will go to bed."
+
+Dumfounded, Jimsy followed Aunt Judith up to bed. Here in a great,
+old-fashioned bedroom he forgot everything in an eager contemplation of
+a whirling, feathery background to his window.
+
+"Aunt Judith," he called excitedly, "it's snowin'. Gee, that's
+Christmasy, ain't it! I don't mind the snow at all s'long's I got a bed
+cinched." His eager face lengthened. "Wisht Stump had a bed," he
+finished wistfully.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Stump?"
+
+"I jus' called him Stump, Aunt Judith, 'cause he didn't have no tail."
+Aunt Judith's eyes were sympathetic.
+
+But an embarrassing difficulty arose about Jimsy's bed attire which
+drove Stump for a time from his mind. It was solved by a night-shirt of
+first-citizen primness, which trailed upon the carpet and made him
+snigger self-consciously behind his hand until he heard Aunt Judith's
+step again beyond the door, when he vaulted into bed, shivering
+luxuriously in the chill softness of unaccustomed linen.... And then
+Aunt Judith blew out the lamp and tucked him in with hands so tremulous
+and gentle that his throat troubled him again, and he lay very still.
+Meeting her eyes, he suddenly buried his face in the pillow with a gulp
+and a sob, and clung to her hand. Aunt Judith, shaking, caught him
+wildly in her arms, cried very hard, and kissed him good-night. Jimsy,
+Stump and Aunt Judith Sawyer knew variously the meaning of starvation.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+III
+
+THE CHAIN GROWS
+
+
+The house grew very still. Jimsy, awaking after a time with the start of
+unfamiliar surroundings, heard the rattle of wind and snow against his
+window. A tree brushed monotonously against the panes--then through the
+sounds of winter storm came an unmistakable whimper and a howl. The boy
+sat up. Stump! Huddled likely against the door in an agony of faith.
+Jimsy thought of a winter night before Mom Dorgan had taken him in, and
+shivered. The howl came again. Rising, Jimsy opened his door on a crack
+and peered cautiously through it. The hallway was dimly alight from a
+lamp, set, for safety's sake, within a pewter bowl. The house of Sawyer
+slept. Gathering his train in his hand, Jimsy hurried through the hall
+and down the stairs to the lower floor, quite dark now, save for barred
+patches of window framing ghostly landscapes. A gust of wind and snow
+whirled in as he unbarred the kitchen door. Then something with an
+ingratiating waggle pushed gladly against his feet. Five seconds later
+Jimsy and Stump were on their way upstairs.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Excitement exacted its toll. Jimsy halted at the second turn in the
+upper hall, his scalp feeling very queer. The lamp had gone out,
+probably in the draft from the kitchen door, and he had lost his room!
+Whispering desperate admonitions to the wriggling dog beneath his arm,
+Jimsy went on tiptoed hunt until, finding a window, a turn and a door
+that seemed familiar, he heaved a great sigh of relief and turned the
+knob. As he pushed back the door, a flood of light and warmth fanned
+out, and Jimsy, tangling his feet in his train as only a small boy
+could, fell headlong into the room, propelling Stump, who yelped with
+fright, at the very feet of Abner Sawyer.
+
+"Oh, my Gosh!" yelled Jimsy wildly. "Pinched!"
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Outraged, the first citizen rose from a bench beside a table and a lamp,
+and Jimsy, scrambling to his feet, a ridiculous figure of apology and
+dismay in his billowing train and sagging shoulders, saw that Mr. Sawyer
+held in his hand a plane and a piece of wood and that the room in which
+he stood was a work-shop perfect in equipment.
+
+"What," demanded Mr. Sawyer in a terrible voice, "what does this mean?
+That dog--"
+
+But Jimsy had not heard.
+
+"Lordy," he breathed, "what a thump-walloper of a shop! Whisht Jack
+Sweeny could see this. My, wouldn't his good eye open! Whatcha makin'?"
+
+Mr. Sawyer reddened as any man may whose weakness has been unexpectedly
+detected by a boy in an acre of night-shirt.
+
+"No one," he began icily, "_no_ one--not even Mrs. Sawyer presumes to
+come beyond that threshold"--he broke off and frowned impatiently,
+feeling his power of aloofness threatened by something in Jimsy's eager
+stare which claimed a kinship of interest.... There was an alarming
+suggestion of intimacy anyway in a midnight scene with a tailless dog, a
+boy clad in your own night-shirt--and an inferential person with an eye
+by the name of Sweeny.... Why did a ridiculous frozen sense of guilt
+impede his tongue now when rebuke was imperative?... Why on earth had a
+look of relief and understanding supplanted the puzzled friendliness of
+Jimsy's supper-time stare?... So might a dog look who had waggled in
+friendly perplexity at the foot of a flawless statue only to find that
+the statue held in its hand a lowly but perfectly comprehensible bone
+... and the dog's attitude of course toward the flawless statue would
+never be quite the same--nor--
+
+"James," said the first citizen hoarsely, "go to bed!"
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Aw," said James softly, "make it Jimsy. Aunt Judith did. I ain't no
+stiff wit' spinach an' buttons chasin' newsies off the porch."
+
+"Jimsy!" said the first citizen faintly, and felt his world rock about
+him again. For fate and Jimsy, it was very plain, had filed the word
+away with the biscuit.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Jimsy's grin was radiant. Upset, Mr. Sawyer turned back to his bench
+with Jimsy at his heels.
+
+"Oh, Lordy, Lordy," breathed the boy in an ecstasy of admiration.
+"Makin' a Christmas present fur Aunt Judith on the sly, ain't ye? Won't
+she jus' open her eyes! _I_ bet! And polishin' the wood yerself. Gee!"
+
+Mr. Sawyer cleared his throat.
+
+"Mrs. Sawyer and I," said he, "do--not--exchange--gifts--at Christmas.
+This cabinet is for my private office at the bank."
+
+Jimsy's face fell.
+
+"Aw," he said gently, "seems like ye'd orta give her sumthin' fur
+Christmas. She's so awful good.... B'long to the union?"
+
+"I--I beg your pardon?"
+
+"Carpenters' union. Jack Sweeny does."
+
+The first citizen froze.
+
+"Carpentering with me," he explained stiffly, "is a fad--not an
+occupation or a necessity. I," he added "am President of the Lindon
+Bank."
+
+Jimsy's glance was sympathetic. It regretted the world's gain of a bank
+president at the expense of a better carpenter.
+
+"I kin plane," he pleaded eagerly. "Honest Injun, I kin. I kin whittle
+too, like ol' Scratch. Lemme plane this--"
+
+"I thank you," began Mr. Sawyer coldly, with unfortunate selection of
+words, "but--" His voice faltered under Jimsy's shining gaze. For,
+reading in the formal repudiation a vote of thanks, Jimsy had seized a
+plane and set to work.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The shavings flew. The clock ticked loudly in the quiet. Outside a
+winter blizzard was sweeping in white fury from the hills. Stump
+crouched silently in a corner, his head upon his paws. And Abner
+Sawyer, returning to his work in helpless indecision, felt his privacy
+and his dignity forever compromised by a boy and a dog. He knew of
+course that a small boy, scantily clad, should not be planing furiously
+on the bench beside him at midnight with a sociable gleam in his
+eye--yet--something--a terrible conviction perhaps that if he spoke at
+all his voice would be hoarse and uncertain and his poise threatened by
+the paralyzing sense of apology which welled strangely up within him in
+Jimsy's presence, tied his tongue. The minutes ticked loudly on and the
+shavings flew.... And Jimsy would misinterpret whatever he said in terms
+of sentimentality. He always did.... The clock struck one.... Abner
+Sawyer rose.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"James--Jimsy," he said, and his voice was hoarse and uncertain as he
+knew it would be, "you must go to bed."
+
+Jimsy looked up sympathetically.
+
+"Got a cold?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Frog in your throat?"
+
+"No."
+
+Jimsy resigned his plane with a sigh.
+
+"Golly," he laughed, "we'd catch it, wouldn't we--me and you--if Aunt
+Judith knew!"
+
+Then he glanced at Stump and said nothing at all. And quite suddenly
+conscience told Abner Sawyer that he could not accept without giving.
+Jimsy had helped him willingly and he had accepted--why he could not for
+the life of him remember, save that it had something to do with his
+throat and his poise. It did entail obligation of a sort, however, and
+he was a just man. Abner Sawyer did not look at Stump. He blew out the
+light.
+
+In silence the two passed out and closed the door. The episodic
+irregularities of the evening beginning with the Lindon _Evening News_
+had reached unheard of climax. A mongrel dog was asleep in the warmth of
+the sanctum.
+
+Abner Sawyer had a strangling sense of another link to his biscuit-riven
+chain and passed his hand over his forehead in a dazed and weary way.
+
+"Abner," said Aunt Judith nervously at breakfast, "you--you don't think
+this once we--could have--a--a Christmas tree for Jimsy?"
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Certainly not!" said Mr. Sawyer coldly.
+
+Aunt Judith's hand trembled a little as she poured the coffee and the
+first citizen waited so long for her usual reply that he thought
+impatiently it would never come. It came at last--quietly.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Just as you--say, Abner." But the final word was lost in an outraged
+yell from somewhere near the woodpile.
+
+"It--it must be Jimsy," said Aunt Judith hurriedly. "He--he was up so
+early I gave him his breakfast. He's shoveling the snow from the
+walks--"
+
+"Gwan!" came a muffled roar. "Say that again and I'll bust yer face
+good." Sounds of battle and vilifying repartee speedily upset the Sawyer
+breakfast. Abner Sawyer pushed back his chair and strode hastily to the
+kitchen window. He saw concentric circles of fists and snow and a
+yapping dog. He could not know that the defensive section of the
+maelstrom was Specks, the Christmas urchin next door, or that Jimsy and
+Specks settled every controversy under Heaven in a fashion of their own.
+
+The first citizen flung up the window.
+
+"James!" he said in a terrible voice.
+
+The concentric circles wavered--then whirled dizzily on.
+
+"James!" Too much conventional horror and dignity there to pierce the
+elemental.
+
+"_Jimsy!_" There was sharp informality now that meant business. Jimsy
+upset his freckled antagonist in the snow and wheeled.
+
+"Mister Sawyer," he yelled indignantly, "he went an' said ye was an ol'
+crab--an' a miser--an' a skinflint--an'--an' a stiff--an' I blacked his
+eye fur him an' tol' him he lied. An' he went an' said ye didn't have no
+heart or ye wouldn't let Aunt Judith carry in the wood an' do all the
+work an' never git no new clothes--"
+
+"Yi! Yi! Yi! Yi!" derided Specks. "Boney Middleton tol' me--Boney
+Middleton tol' me. You won't have no tree or nuthin'."
+
+"Didn't I tell ye 'bout the biscuit?" demanded Jimsy fiercely. "An'
+about Stump sleepin' in the work-shop, didn't I? Hain't that enuff?
+Hain't he good to boys an' dogs? I--I don't want no Christmas tree, ye
+big stiff. I'm goin' to have turkey--"
+
+But Abner Sawyer had closed the window with a bang. Although he did not
+look at Aunt Judith he knew that her face was white.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+IV
+
+THE CHAIN CLANKS
+
+
+It was the day before Christmas that the Village Conscience telephoned
+the Lindon Bank.
+
+"I felt that I must call you up, Mr. Sawyer," she said firmly, "and tell
+you that the boy you have with you over Christmas is going around from
+door to door, ringing the bell and--_begging_!"
+
+"Begging!"
+
+"Perhaps I shouldn't call it _just_ that--but--well, saying 'Merry
+Christmas!' rather hopefully."
+
+Feeling rather sick, Abner Sawyer formally thanked his informer and rang
+off. Glancing out of his office window he saw with a shock that instead
+of Austin White, who usually drove him home at night, Jimsy and Peggy,
+the old Sawyer mare, were waiting beneath a snow-ridged elm with the
+sleigh. Jimsy caught his eye, smiled warmly and waved, and because
+Abner Sawyer did not know what else to do, he stiffly returned the
+salute and reached for his hat, irritably conscious that sufficient
+sleep and food had already left their marks upon his guest. Jimsy's
+cheeks above the old-fashioned tippet Aunt Judith had wound about his
+throat were smooth and ruddy.
+
+"Aunt Judith didn't want me to come," explained Jimsy, "but I tol' her
+how Gink Gunnigan often let me drive his truck an' I guess I coaxed so
+hard she had to.... Unc--Mister Sawyer, it--it's nearly Chris'mus eve!"
+
+Abner Sawyer climbed in without a word. Peggy flew off with a jingle of
+bells through the village, through the woods, through a Christmas eve
+twilight dotted now with homely squares of light shining jewel-wise
+among the snowy trees.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Jimsy!"
+
+"Yes, sir?"
+
+"A lady telephoned that you'd been--_begging_--from door to door."
+
+Jimsy hung his head.
+
+"I--I only rung some door-bells an' said 'Merry Chris'mus.'"
+
+"You expected and received--money?"
+
+"Y-e-e-e-e-es, sir."
+
+"Why?"
+
+Silence.
+
+"Jimsy, I insist upon an explanation."
+
+Jimsy gulped and faced Abner Sawyer, his eyes blazing with heartbroken
+disappointment through tear-wet lashes.
+
+"Uncle Ab," he choked, "it--it was a Chris'mus s'prise fur you an' Aunt
+Judith." A great tear rolled slowly down upon the tippet. "I--I seen a
+book on fancy carpenterin' an' I--I didn't have no money an'--an' a
+thimble. It ain't silver, but it's 'mos' as good." And then Jimsy lost
+his moorings with a sob and cried his heart out upon the sleeve of Abner
+Sawyer. "I--I got the book buttoned under my coat," he blurted after a
+while, "an', Uncle Ab, I'm awful sorry 'bout the door-bells. All the
+fellus do it home--"
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Abner Sawyer would have been less than human if the boy's tragedy had
+not touched him.
+
+"Why," he asked huskily, "why did you wish to give me a Christmas
+present?"
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Because," cried Jimsy passionately, "yer so awful good to me an' Stump,
+an' so's Aunt Judith. An' I thought mebbe ye'd never had nobuddy ever
+give ye a present an' mean it like I did or--"
+
+"Or what, Jimsy?"
+
+"Ye'd feel diffrunt 'bout Christmas."
+
+The first citizen took the reins himself, tucked Jimsy in beneath the
+fur robe and drove home in silence, conscious only that the world was
+awry and he hated the Village Conscience. Nor was he quite himself even
+after supper was done and Jimsy, a little tearful still in his
+disappointment, safe in bed.
+
+"Abner--" began Aunt Judith from her chair by the fire.
+
+"Yes?" said Mr. Sawyer coldly. He wished Judith would not talk. She
+rarely did. He was tired and upset and probing desperately within for
+some remnant of the cold complacence of a week ago.
+
+"The minister was here to-day. He--he told me how Mrs. Dorgan took Jimsy
+in from the street. She--drinks. He--hasn't--a real--home. The minister
+would like--to--to find one for him."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Jimsy again! He must fling away his chain now or feel it clank.
+
+"That," said Abner Sawyer resentfully, "is of no interest to me."
+
+There was pitiful, hard-wrung bravery in Aunt Judith's face. Only a
+passionate surge of feeling could have swept away the silence and
+repression of the years. Only a woman's emotion, wild and maternal for
+all its starving, inevitable as the law of God, could have leaped a
+barrier so fixed and unrelenting.
+
+"Abner," she said desperately. "I--I want to keep Jimsy. I--I can't
+_bear_ to see him go--"
+
+"Judith!" There was more in the single word of course than Aunt Judith
+could know. There was an unread paper and a biscuit, a tailless dog
+invading sanctity, a yelling boy by a woodpile, and now the memory of a
+twilight ride and the tears of a choking lad upon his sleeve, an
+irritating record of moments of weakness which it behooved a first
+citizen to stamp out of his life forever. Aunt Judith read in his face
+an inexorable death-sentence of her hope and rose, trembling.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"You are a hard, cold man!" she said, very white. "And the house is so
+lonely I hate it!... I _hate_ it!" quivered Aunt Judith with a long
+shuddering sob; "there's no one to love in it--no one! And everything
+Specks said to Jimsy was true!"
+
+And then, crying and shaking, she was gone, and Abner Sawyer went with
+stumbling feet to the privacy of his work-shop, his face death-white.
+The pompous illusions of his little world were tumbling to ruins about
+him.
+
+He had said with frequent unction that he was a "hard" man, interpreting
+that phrase liberally in terms of thrift, economy and substantial common
+sense, and his world, through the mouth of an urchin, had flung back to
+him the galling words--_miser_ and _skinflint_! They had fawned to his
+face and flouted his back, gossiping of servants and made-over gowns
+and kindlings. Up and down the quiet work-shop walked Abner Sawyer,
+clinging in an agony of humiliation to the loyalty of a little
+urchin.... It was all he had, he told himself fiercely, all he had!
+Jimsy alone saw him as he was and liked him.... No heart!... No
+Christmas tree!... No one in the house to love.... He must prove then to
+Specks--to Jimsy--to Judith--to the Middletons--to all Lindon--
+
+Turning with hot anger in his heart, he saw a book upon his work-bench;
+and picking it up, Abner Sawyer faced the pitiful fiasco of Jimsy's
+Christmas gift. With a great lump in his throat and his eyes wet he
+glanced at the fly-leaf.
+
+"To Uncle Ab," it said, "from Jimsy. Chrismus gretings."
+
+The door clicked as it had clicked the night before and the night
+before.
+
+"Unc--Mister Sawyer," said Jimsy sleepily. "I 'mos' forgot to come, I
+was so awful tired an' sleepy.... Ain't--ain't sick, are ye, Uncle Ab?
+Yer face is awful queer."
+
+"I--I don't know," said the first citizen hoarsely. "I--I think I am. Go
+to bed, Jimsy, and--thank--you--for the book."
+
+Jimsy went back to bed. He did not know--nor did Aunt Judith or Abner
+Sawyer that presently he was the sole keeper of the house save Stump
+snoring in the kitchen. For Abner Sawyer was furtively driving Peggy
+into a village that knew him only by repute and Aunt Judith, having
+slipped away in white defiance to Cousin Lemuel's down the road, was
+driving into Lindon with the surreptitious savings of many years in the
+old-fashioned pocket of her gown.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+V
+
+THE PROVING
+
+
+The clock struck six. It was Christmas morning! Jimsy awoke with the
+thought of turkey uppermost in his mind, to find Aunt Judith by his bed,
+a wonderful look of Christmas, he thought, in her gentle face.
+
+"Dress quickly, Jimsy," she whispered, "and don't make a sound--not a
+sound! I'll wait outside by the door. It--it's a Christmas secret that
+nobody but you and I must know."
+
+Jimsy tumbled into his clothes and opened the door.
+
+"W-w-w-w-what is it, Aunt Judith?" he whispered.
+
+But for answer Aunt Judith only hurried him in a flutter to the
+sewing-room, safe this many a year from the measured tread of
+first-citizen feet, and closed the door.
+
+"Oh, Aunt Judith!" gulped the boy. "Aunt Judith!"
+
+A Christmas tree winked and rainbowed glory in a window by the eaves,
+everything beneath its tinselled branches that the heart of boy could
+wish. The radiance in Jimsy's eyes brought Aunt Judith to her knees
+beside him, her sweet, tired eyes wet with tears of pleasure.
+
+"You like it, Jimsy?" she whispered. "You're sure you like it, dear?"
+
+Jimsy buried his face on Aunt Judith's shoulder with a strangled sob of
+excitement and delight.
+
+"Aunt Judith," he blurted, "I--I can't 'mos' tell ye what I think."
+
+Aunt Judith's arms clung tightly to him.
+
+"Cousin Lemuel helped me," she whispered. "The house was dark and Mr.
+Sawyer in bed. There wasn't even a light in the work-shop. We tiptoed up
+and down the back-stairs. You mustn't breathe a word of it, Jimsy! Not a
+word! It's for you and me."
+
+Jimsy sighed.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Whisht," he said, "whisht Uncle Ab believed in Chris'mus."
+
+Aunt Judith kissed him.
+
+"Bless your heart, Jimsy," she said bravely. "So do I."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+But even bewildering hours with gifts and trees must come to an end, and
+presently Aunt Judith and Jimsy went down hand in hand to attend to the
+fire and breakfast.... And the opening of the sitting-room door froze
+Aunt Judith Sawyer to the threshold, her face whitely unbelieving.
+Something was wrong with the primness of the sitting-room--something in
+evergreen and tinsel and a hundred candles that showered Christmas from
+its boughs--something was wrong with Abner Sawyer--up and waiting by the
+window, his face twisted into a faint and sickly smile of apology.
+
+For now that he was in the very heart of his "proving" he did not know
+what on earth to do. Dignity?... It was hopelessly out of the question.
+With a monument to his midnight guilt blazing there in the corner--with
+Christmas wreaths hung in the windows to confound the Middletons--he
+must face the music. Feeling very foolish, he cleared his throat and
+essayed to speak, paralyzed into silence again by the unexpected
+evolution of a hoarse croak so horribly un-first-citizen that it
+frightened him.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Jimsy broke the staring silence.
+
+"Uncle Ab," he quivered, "ye never--ye never went an' done all that fur
+me!"
+
+"I--I don't know," said Abner Sawyer, swallowing very hard. "I--I think
+I did."
+
+"When," faltered Aunt Judith from the doorway, "did you--do it?"
+
+"It must have been after midnight. I came in very quietly. The ride was
+long--I went to Matsville. You must have been in bed asleep--"
+
+Jimsy embarked upon a handspring of celebration.
+
+"Two trees!" he shouted, caution quite forgotten in his wild excitement,
+"two suits of clothes--two everything! Oh, my gosh, Specks ain't in it.
+I'm the Christmas kid!" and then in a panic he was on his feet again,
+his face hot and red. "Aunt Judith," he exclaimed, almost crying, "I'm
+awfully sorry--"
+
+Aunt Judith's tremulous laugh seemed tears and silver.
+
+"Never mind, dear. It's all right now. Abner," she swallowed bravely,
+"one of--one of Jimsy's Christmas trees is in the sewing-room. I--I'd
+like you to see it."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+VI
+
+THE TRIUMPH
+
+
+Specks reviewed the Christmas tree in the sitting-room after breakfast
+and looked upset. It was bigger than his own.
+
+"Got one downstairs, too," crowed Jimsy. "Uncle Ab," he added, "he sort
+o' wanted it to be awful Christmasy through the whole house, an'--an'
+Jiminy Crickets, Specks, it is!"
+
+"Uncle Ab--who's Uncle Ab?"
+
+"Uncle Ab Sawyer." Jimsy bristled. "What ye got to say about it?"
+
+"Nuthin'."
+
+"Did _you_ get _two_ trees, Specks?"
+
+"Naw. Hain't many folks did, I guess. 'Tain't nuthin' to crow about,
+anyway."
+
+"Huh! Thought ye said the Middletons was more Christmasy'n us."
+
+"I didn't."
+
+"Ye did."
+
+"I didn't."
+
+"Ye did, too, and I walloped ye fur it. I'll wallop ye again if ye say
+ye didn't."
+
+"Jimsy!" Aunt Judith's gentle voice put an end to controversy. An
+armistice was pledged.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Did ye get skates, Specks?"
+
+"Nope."
+
+"Gosh, I'm sorry fur that. I got two pairs. Mebbe--Aunt Judith?"
+
+"Yes, Jimsy?"
+
+"Would ye mebbe mind me givin' Specks a pair o' skates? Mr. Middleton he
+ain't so Christmasy as you an' Uncle Ab--"
+
+Specks swallowed hard and accepted this and the skates. But he could not
+forbear at least one shaft of triumph.
+
+"I got a sled, Jimsy!"
+
+"Huh!" said Jimsy. "So did I. Two of 'em."
+
+It was too much. The street urchin in Specks came to the fore in a
+mighty wave of envy.
+
+"Gawd!" he gulped.
+
+Jimsy glowered.
+
+"Hey!" he whispered fiercely "Hain't ye got no decency?"
+
+Specks blushed apology and departed.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Later, Jimsy reviewed the Sawyer turkey with a reverential glisten in
+his eye.
+
+"Specks!" he yelled from the kitchen window. "Yi, Specksy!"
+
+"What d'ye want?"
+
+"Come over an' see the turkey."
+
+"Y'ain't got two, have ye?" demanded Specks with suspicion.
+
+"Naw," said Jimsy. "One's enuff. This un's bigger'n the turkey Pete
+Googan raffled off last Christmas eve."
+
+So Specks returned to envy--for the house of Sawyer had outdone the
+house of Middleton once more--and Jimsy in a glow of noisy delight led
+him to rows of pies and a barrel of ruddy apples--to celery and
+tarts--to fruit cake and cranberries and simmering vegetables--in short
+to every home-keeping kitchen device for filling a country house with
+the odor of Christmas and the promise of good cheer. The Sawyer kitchen
+to-day was a wonderful place of shine and spice. Even Aunt Judith felt
+the nameless something in the air, for her cheeks were faintly pink and
+the hand that smoothed her snowy apron trembled ever so little.
+Christmas had not come so this many a year.
+
+But Specks departed this time with a furtive air of triumph.
+
+"Mr. Middleton ain't no stiff," he announced. "_He's_ goin' out on the
+hill coastin' with me this afternoon--"
+
+"S-s-s-s-h!" whispered Jimsy fiercely. "D'ye want Aunt Judith to hear
+ye? I git awful sick o' wallopin' you, Specks, but lemme hear ye say
+that again an' I'll baste ye good."
+
+The kitchen door swung back. Specks paled, as well he might. The first
+citizen stood in the doorway, his mouth set.
+
+"Jimsy," he said, clearing his throat. "Get your sled, my boy. We'd
+better try it out before dinner."
+
+It was a challenge to the Middletons, of course, but afterwards, in a
+wild moment of panic, Abner Sawyer felt that he would have retracted at
+any cost had it not been for the wonderful glow in Jimsy's face. He felt
+a little sick.... God help him, he liked Jimsy! He wanted to please
+him!
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+VII
+
+THE DOWNFALL
+
+
+The Lindon hill was full of watchers. That in itself was disconcerting.
+Wild spirits gather in the snow on Christmas morning. And it was, of
+course, like Jimsy to fling himself suddenly upon his sled with a whoop
+and go flying down the hill through the snow fleet, yelling wildly, but
+Abner Sawyer wished he had made his debut a trifle less conspicuously.
+For it brought all eyes to Abner Sawyer himself standing stiffly upon
+the hill-top not quite sure of his ground. A neighbor or so eyed him in
+polite surprise and nodded; a child fastened round eyes upon his silk
+hat and he wished he had left it at home. But Christmas was no more
+Christmas than Sunday was Sunday without this formal head-piece, and
+besides, it had been his sole concession to the horrified stir of
+dignity within him when Jimsy had appeared upon the walk beside him
+dragging his sled. What on earth was he doing here anyway in the rough
+and tumble sport of a Christmas morning!
+
+Yells of greeting followed Jimsy's meteoric flight down the hillside.
+Everybody seemed to know and like him, and Jimsy, as ever, was noisily
+responsive. Yes, he was more a part of this village of Lindon than the
+first citizen himself standing aloof upon the hill-top, and the first
+citizen had spent his life in Lindon. Abner Sawyer felt hurt and alone.
+He had slipped in an unwary moment from his wound-proof armor of
+conscious superiority and in this world of friends outside it, there was
+more room for Jimsy than there was for him. Small comfort, after all,
+the solitude of greatness!
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The first citizen frowned impatiently. What was it all about, anyway, he
+wondered hopelessly. Did he want to be one of that yelling, shoving,
+jostling crowd? Surely not! His dignity rose in revolt at the very
+thought of it. Did he hunger for Jimsy's supreme gift of adaptability?
+Why should this fierce new hunger for one friendly, honest,
+heart-warming smile of liking and welcome gnaw at his heart?... Why--God
+help him!--why was he a stranger in his own town?
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"The world is all wrong," said Abner Sawyer, a little white; "I am not
+myself." And for a wild moment his sore heart flamed again at Jimsy's
+revolutionizing intrusion into the quiet smugness of his life.
+
+Jimsy's quick, eager little smile of greeting as he came up the hill
+again warmed the pang away--it was so full of good-fellowship and
+understanding.
+
+"Ever go belly-whopper, Uncle Ab?" he demanded radiantly.
+
+"I--I scarcely think so," said the first citizen.
+
+"I--I don't like to belly-whop down the hill with you standin' up here
+alone," said Jimsy shyly. "Why don't ye go down just once with me, Uncle
+Ab? Then if ye like it, we'll just have one thump-walloper of a time!"
+
+"No, no, Jimsy," said the first citizen. "I--I can't do that--" and then
+for the first time he met the amused eyes of Hiram Middleton and
+Specks.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+So they had followed to the hill--incredulous and curious! A wave of
+anger swept Abner Sawyer into indiscretion.
+
+"I--I'll go with you once, Jimsy," he said, and Jimsy's round little
+face glowed.
+
+So the first citizen seated himself stiffly on the sled behind Jimsy,
+wondering what on earth to do with his legs. They seemed to have
+lengthened mysteriously and they looked astonishingly thin. Jimsy gave a
+wild Indian whoop of warning and the sled hurtled off down the hill,
+with the first citizen, unbelievably stiff-legged and frightened,
+clinging to his hat.
+
+His emotions were panoramic. There was panic first at his lost
+dignity--then wonder at their speed, but most of all his legs bothered
+him--his legs and his hat. He wished Jimsy would quit yelling. Yet for
+all he tried he could not bring himself to say so.
+
+"Ki-yi-yi-yi-whoop!" sang Jimsy, steering. Abner Sawyer gulped.
+Everybody on the hill, of course, was staring; his coat-tails were
+flying dizzily behind him. There would be a scandal and the directors
+of the Lindon Bank might even meet and call him to account. Small
+blame to them. Abner Sawyer mentally sketched a caricature of
+himself--coat-tails, legs and all--and Heaven help him!--lost his hat.
+He emitted a feeble croak of dismay. Jimsy looking back steered into a
+snow-bank and dumped the president of the Lindon Bank out upon the hill.
+
+"Gosh Almighty, Uncle Ab," he yelled, "I'm awful sorry. I seen your lid
+go--"
+
+"Never mind, Jimsy," said the first citizen, sitting up, "never
+mind--I--I really shouldn't have worn such a wind-catcher to--to
+belly-whop in--"
+
+He sat very stiff amid the ruins of the snow-bank. Jimsy grinned.
+
+"Ye ain't really done no belly-whoppin' yet," he said.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+And now for the first time Abner Sawyer realized that everybody on the
+hill had come running at Jimsy's yell to see if he was hurt.... One was
+brushing him off ... another had rescued his hat with a horrible
+un-first-citizen dent in it and a lump of snow on the brim ... and they
+weren't shocked ... they weren't laughing.... Why on earth should there
+be friendliness now in their gaze when he had seemed so far away from
+them standing up there on the hill? No scandalized amazement here at the
+downfall of Lindon's pride ... he was somehow closer to them all.
+
+It was Aunt Polly Magee, the self-appointed mother of the village, who
+finally stood the first citizen upon his feet and brushed the snow from
+his back.
+
+"Dear me," she said, "that was a spill. When ye went down ye seemed
+'mos' as leggy as a spider. Next time ye go coastin', Ab, ye'd better
+not wear your Sunday hat. 'Tain't no better'n a kite when it comes to
+wind."
+
+Abner Sawyer's smile was vague and apologetic, but there was a fierce,
+wild joy in his heart that he didn't try to understand. He was glad he
+had lost his hat--he was glad he had fallen into the snow-bank--and he
+was glad Aunt Polly Magee had called him Ab for the first time in thirty
+years!
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+VIII
+
+THE CHAIN IS LOCKED
+
+
+Like a rainbow blur fled the Sawyer Christmas, punctuated with the yells
+and bangs of boyhood. From dawn to bed it was a triumph.
+
+"Jimsy," said the first citizen at dusk, "has it--has it been what you'd
+call a--a walloper-thump--"
+
+"Thump-walloper," corrected Jimsy.
+
+"Thump-walloper of a day?"
+
+Jimsy's reply was ecstatic.
+
+"I 'mos' always forget," he added ruefully. "Aunt Judith said I mustn't
+call ye Uncle Ab. Which d'ye like best, Uncle Ab? Mister Sawyer or Uncle
+Ab?"
+
+"I--I think," said the first citizen with a gulp, "that I like Uncle Ab
+a little better."
+
+"So do I," said Jimsy.
+
+With a wind-beaten flutter of wings, Jimsy's Christmas fled at
+midnight. Dawn grayed bleakly over the Sawyer home, and there came an
+hour when Peggy waited to carry Jimsy to the station. Nervous and
+irritable--why he did not know save that time was crowding and he must
+deliver Jimsy to the minister in time for the 8.32, Abner Sawyer strode
+resolutely to the kitchen door. But he did not summon Jimsy. Instead he
+turned a little white.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+It was a common enough sight--a woman clinging to a child and
+crying--but Abner Sawyer was conscious of a swelling mutiny in his
+throat and a blur to his vision.
+
+"Do-o-o-on't cry, Aunt Judith!" gulped Jimsy courageously. "I'll be as
+good as I know how. An' you'll be awful good to Stump, won't ye, Aunt
+Judith? He's lame an'--an' he's had a fierce life."
+
+"Yes--yes--"
+
+"An' tell Uncle Austin White I sent him good-by."
+
+"Yes, Jimsy."
+
+"An'--an' write me every week 'bout ol' Peggy an' Uncle Ab an'--an' you,
+Aunt Judith. Don't forget--"
+
+"Everything, dear!"
+
+"Go-o-o-oby, Aunt Judith!"
+
+"Oh, Jimsy! Jimsy!"
+
+Abner Sawyer fled to his wagon with his hands upon his ears. It was the
+wildest sobbing he had ever heard. When Jimsy came, at last, looking
+very red and swollen, the first citizen was staring straight ahead.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Peggy finished at the station almost neck and neck with the train. The
+minister spoke to Mr. Sawyer and rushed Jimsy up the steps. A bell
+clanged. There was much noise and puffing and the train was under way.
+Jimsy, wildly remembering his good-by to Uncle Ab, flung up the train
+window and waved a frantic hand.
+
+Then something happened.
+
+A shaking hand touched the baggage-master.
+
+"Stop the train!" said Abner Sawyer harshly. He was deathly white.
+"It--it is important. I will pay if necessary."
+
+It was unprecedented, but, thoroughly rural in his taste for sensation,
+the baggage-master leaped to the bottom step of the nearest car and
+spoke to a brakeman. The brakeman glanced at the first citizen with
+respect. There was a hissing noise and a jerk. When the train rumbled to
+a stop again under the startled eyes of Lindon, Abner Sawyer was already
+striding up the aisle. With the intelligent eyes of the young minister
+upon him, he snatched Jimsy roughly from the seat, carried him down the
+aisle--down the steps--and over the platform to Peggy.
+
+"W-what is it, Uncle Ab?" faltered the boy. "Did I--did I forget
+something?"
+
+Abner Sawyer felt the boy's warm young cheek against his face and a
+great lump welled up in his throat. Something hot stung his eyes. The
+clasp of his arms tightened.
+
+"Jimsy," he said huskily, "you said I ought to give Aunt Judith a
+Christmas present, and I'm going to give her--_you_!"
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Jimsy, by Leona Dalrymple
+
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+
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