24 
House & Garden 
AS THE CHRISTMAS GIFT MAY SEE IT 
A H-H-H—I’m glad to be out of the city at last! Think of it— 
. after weeks of gray slush and cluttering crowds, of greasy streets 
where no self-respecting sled could set runner without a shudder, I 
peeked out of the back of the expressman’s sleigh coming over from 
the station yesterday and saw snow, clean, sparkling, dry snow a whole 
foot deep! 
No matter that I've never glided a foot in my life, nor had a chance 
to wear the new red paint off my legs—I know my birthright when 
I see it. It’s out here in the country, where the ways are steep and 
the air clean and nipping, where a fellow can have a boy to skim 
with down long, winding roads, past snow-buried rail fences and 
straight, dark cedars pointed against a blue sky. How I’ll bend and 
swerve around the curves, and leap clear of the track at the thank- 
you-ma’ams, settling back again to fly on faster than before! How 
the sun will gleam overhead and the snow hiss under my feet! How 
his dog will race after us, a distant speck in the road's white path! 
Best of all, I shall love the cold, still 
nights, all set with glittering points like an 
old-time Christmas card, when the moon 
rides white in the sky and every twig and 
branch is etched in shadow on the crust. 
No roads will be for us, then, but the broad 
shoulders of the hill pastures. Slipping, 
scrambling on the icy surface, crunching 
through a little here and there, we’ll reach 
the crest of the slope. A pause for breath, 
and then the downward plunge, the boy 
flat on my back, the» keen air sweeping 
against our faces, the clear black ice of the 
lake a dark pool far below. Faster, faster, 
the whine of the wind rising to a roar, the 
valley rushing up to meet us. Trees swirl 
up to us and whisk past, blurred and form¬ 
less. A fence, bars down, a scattering fringe 
of weeds, and we shoot out on smooth, silent 
ice, endlessly on into the moonlight. 
Yes, I see it all so clearly, hidden though 
I am in a locked closet under the stairs, 
waiting for Christmas morning. And I 
know that it will all come true, for several 
times I have heard through a chink in the 
wood a boy’s voice, strong and merry, and 
the scratching patter of his terrier as they 
romped through the house. This afternoon 
they tried to open my closet, the boy pulling 
at the knob, the dog sniffing noisily at the 
c r ack. And I know I won’t have to wait 
much longer, for his mother (she must have 
guessed what they were about) called down 
the stairs: 
“Only two days more, Billy, old boy. 
Saturday will be Christmas!” 
“Oh, here it is!” he exclaimed, looking first at the paper and then 
at me in a near-sighted sort of way. “She wants a nice book of verse 
for—” and his voice rambled off incoherently so that I couldn’t catch 
the rest. Then his long, skinny fingers closed on me and dragged me 
away from Amy’s side. 
All that’s happened since then has been a horrible nightmare. A 
silent man in a dark, littered room wrapped me in layers of rough 
cardboard and paper, thumping me about unmercifully. Not satisfied 
with smothering me, he must have tied me up with ropes, for suddenly 
I felt something cutting deep into my head and feet and sides. I 
writhed and groaned in agony, struggling to escape. Then came a 
heavy blow on my chest, and I lost consciousness. 
It must have been hours later when I came to myself. Everything 
was still and unutterably dark. A great weight was crushing me down 
against a sharp, hard lump, like the corner of a box. For days and 
days I lay there, unable to move hand or foot, sick and dizzy with 
pain. Now and then, in half lucid inter¬ 
vals, I thought of my old home on the shelf, 
of Frank and Amy cordially quarreling 
about the merits and demerits of news¬ 
papers. How comfortable and peaceful and 
faraway it seemed! 
At last, through my wrappings, I heard 
a man’s voice, harsh and grumbling. 
“Why don’t people do their Chris’mas 
shoppin’ theirselves,” it rasped, “ ’stead o’ 
havin’ things sent by mail? Anybody’d 
think us post office clerks didn’t have 
enough to do, without havin’ a lot o’ fool 
presents throwed at us to deliver. Look 
at that there big box—bet it’s got glass in 
it. All right, Tom, here goes for a long 
toss—see if ye can ketch it!” I heard a 
heavy thump, followed by a laugh. Then 
the same voice again, “Don’t ye care, Tom. 
Mebbe we can bust the next one good!” 
That was weeks ago, it seems. I’m 
growing used to such things now—to rough 
voices and heart-breaking falls and long, 
bumping, swaying hours tumultuous with 
the clanking of steel wheels on steel and 
the din of railway yards and lurching mail 
trucks. Whither I am going I know not; 
of the days ahead I can only guess. But 
of this I am quite certain: I am a Christ¬ 
mas present for someone who wants a nice 
book of verse, if I ever get there. 
M ON dieu, what a crude, bourgeois 
place! Since four dark, so long days 
I am prisoned here alone by myself, suf¬ 
focated, strangling, dying. I, with the luster of the sea glowing within 
me; I, for whom men braved the ocean depths of Inde with knives 
to battle away the ugly sharks; I, whose beauty made to gasp even 
the Great Parisian; I, the queen of the magnifique pearl case—ah 
miserable, that I should come to dwell here "with handkerchiefs and 
collars all dark in a drawer so reeking of that terrible tobacco' 
Oh could I but escape myself again to the light, the air, the life! 
\\ hat have I clone to be buried alive by a huge, rough animal of a 
man ? All my friends my little, glittering, gay companions, how happy 
arc they still there in the case where the people come to admire' While 
1, to whom praise is as the very breath and soul of life, shiver to the 
heart as he lifts me out of my box with his great thick fingers everv 
night and rumbles like a ferocious old cow, 
“Hope she’ll like ’em, for they set me’back an awful price, even 
for pearls. But they’re not half worthy of her!” 
■fITHAI does it all mean? There I was sitting on the shelf in 
J. 7 A the . ™ ok ftore, sandwiched in between F. P. A.’s “Somethin* 
Else Again and a volume of Amy Lowell’s verse, trying to keen a 
nice Christmasy peace between them, when a simpering clerk came 
a ong with a piece of paper in his hand and stopped right in front of us. 
A window bright with colored glass in the 
remodeled farmhouse of Mrs. Charles H. 
Sabin at Southampton, Long Island 
P REd TY way, this, to treat a perfectly 
good three-months-old pup—drag him 
into a strange room before sun-up on a cold 
winter morning and leave him tied to the 
trunk of a funny looking green tree all hung 
over with fancy boxes and doodads. Why 
the dickens don t they bring me something 
to eat? 
+i ’ "''' f ’! nil ' nu * :e I smell something good! Seems to be up in 
i 6 a \ r s°'ww lores, no yes it is, too—that paper bag tied to the big 
An r l > S M T Py and heay y Poking, like candy; let’s see if I 
V e J ch .A 0 ’ do §" one the luck, I can’t—this blame chain they’ve 
tched me with s too short. Maybe I can twist out of my collar, if I 
WwT backwards. No, it won’t come over my ears. Just my luck! 
Must 1 b ° me : od -y co ™ er ' I t s cold in here, and darn lonesome. 
from A A 1 • 10U1 Mnce . tbe 0 d man his blue bathrobe sneaked me in 
irom that nice warm box by the furnace and chained me to this fool 
„ S !!™ ed r , d ' Va V l good joke—told me what a nice Christ- 
.,11 Vaht f l 1 d be f , or , the klds when they came downstairs. That’s 
1 • > ff , A™ and , them : but how about me? D oes he think it’s 
by himself? 1Ungry ’ lomesic k pup to be left in a great big room all 
it’s 1 t'oo^fnr A g6t ’T 6 ’ and 1 Can t ’ IVe cached for that candv, and 
the Snt on dm N. m ^ part of the ru S> the bark off the tree, 
I’m still lmna • r ;l . 1 i- ark a , nd ever ything else I could get at, and 
pet me and Aim xe istened and waited for somebody to come and 
call her- 7 * 1 want Ma, and'I’m going to 
I ow — yow — yow-ooo-oooooooo! 
R. S. L. 
