very civil, tidy little lad! I like his face.”
Jan had now become deeply interested in what was going on. He stood on tiptoe, and stretched his neck; but all he could see was the man’s back and one of his feet, and now and then the movement of a stick with which the man seemed to be trying to hit something. At last there was a great plunge and a rustling of branches, and people began to hurrah. Jan hurrahed too, though he still saw nothing very clearly; but it is easier to shout when other boys shout, if you happen to be a boy, than it is to keep still.
Slowly the man in the tree began to come down. He had only one hand to help himself with now, for the other held the heavy rook. We in America do not know what rooks are like, but in England they are common enough. They are large black birds, something like our crows, but they look wiser, and are a good deal bigger.
As the man neared the ground every one in the crowd could see what had been the matter with the rook. A kite-string caught among the tree branches, had tangled his legs and held him fast. He had pulled so hard in his efforts to escape that the string had cut into one of his legs and half broken it. It was stiff and bleeding, and the rook could neither fly nor hop. People searched in their pockets, and one little girl, who had a half biscuit, fed the rook, who, for all the kindly efforts of his friends, seemed to be half-famished. The poor thing was too weak to struggle or be frightened, and took the crumbs eagerly from the girl’s hand.
Jan thought of his sweetmeat, and took it out for the third time. Everybody was crowding round the man who held the rook, and he could not get near. A tall policeman stood in front of him. Jan pulled his arm, and when he turned, handed him the sweetmeat, and said in his soft, foreign English:
“For the bird, sir.”
“Thank you my dear,” said the policeman.
He had not understood what Jan said, and in an abstracted way, with his eyes still fixed on the rook, he bit the pink sweetmeat in two, and swallowed half of it at a mouthful. Fortunately Jan did not see this, for the policeman’s back was turned to him; but observing that the man made no attempt to go forward, he pulled his sleeve for the second time, and again said:
“For the bird, I said, sir.”
This time the policeman heard, and taking one step forward, he held the remaining half of the sweetmeat out to the rook, who, having by this time grown used to being fed, took the offered dainty greedily. Jan saw the last pink crumb vanish into the long beak, but he felt no regret. His heart had been touched by the suffering of the poor bird, and he was glad to give what he could to make it forget those painful days in the tree.
So that was the end of the pink sweetmeat, or not quite the end. The kind old gentleman to whom Jan had spoken, had noticed the little transaction with the policeman. He was shrewd as well as kind.
He guessed by Jan’s clothes that he was a working-man’s son, to whom sweets were not an everyday affair, and the generous act pleased him. So he put his hand into his pocket, pulled out a half-crown, and watching his opportunity, dropped it into Jan’s pocket, quite empty now that the sweetmeat was gone. Then, with a little chuckle, he walked away, and Jan had no suspicion of what had been done to him.
Gradually the crowd dispersed, Jan among the rest walking briskly, for he wanted to get home and tell his mother the story. It was not till after supper that he discovered the half-crown, and then it seemed to him like a sort of dream, as if fairies had been at work, and turned the pink sweetmeat into a bit of silver.
That night the three pairs of stockings had another chance for conversation. The blue ones and the green ones lay close together on the floor of the room where Jan slept with his brother, and the white ones which Greta had carelessly dropped as she jumped into bed, were near enough the half-opened door to talk across the sill.
“It has been an exciting day,” said the White Pair. “My girl got a Keble’s Christian Year at her school. It was the second-best prize. It is a good thing to belong to respectable people who take prizes. Only one thing was painful to me, she wriggled her toes so with pleasure that I feel as if I were coming to an end in one of my points.”
“You probably are,” remarked the Big Gray. “Yes, now that I examine, I can see the place. One stitch has parted already, and there is quite a thin spot. You know I always predicted that you would be in the rag-bag before you knew it.”
“Oh, don’t say such dreadful things,” pleaded the Little Blues. “Mrs. Wendte will mend her, I am sure, and make her last. What did your girl do with her sweetmeat?”
“Ate it up directly, of course. What else should one do with a sweetmeat?” snapped the White Pair crossly. “Oh, dear! my toe feels dreadfully ever since you said that; quite neuralgic!”
“My boy was not so foolish as to eat his sweetmeat,” said the Big Gray stockings. “Only girls act in that way, without regard to anything but their greedy appetites. He traded his with another boy, and he got a pocket-knife for it, three screws, and a harmonica. There!”
“Was the knife new?” asked the Blue.
“Could the harmonica play any music?” demanded the White.
“No; the harmonica is out of order inside somehow, but perhaps my boy can mend it. And the knife isn’t new – quite old, in fact – and its blade is broken at the end; still it’s a knife, and Wilhelm thinks he can trade it off for something else. And now for your adventures. What did your boy do with his sweetmeat, Little Blues? Did he eat it, or trade it?”
“It is eaten,” replied the Blue Stockings cautiously.
“Eaten! Then of course he ate it. Why don’t you speak out? If he ate it, say so. If he didn’t, who did?”
“Well, nobody ate the whole of it, and my boy didn’t eat any. It was divided between two persons – or rather, between one person and – and – a thing that is not a person.”
“Bless me! What are you talking about? I never heard anything so absurd in my life. Persons, and things that are not persons,” said the White Pair, “what do you mean?”
“Yes; what do you mean? What is the use of beating about the bush in this way?” remonstrated the Big Gray Pair. “Who did eat the sweetmeat? Say plainly.”
“Half of it was eaten by a policeman, and the other half by a rook,” replied the Little Blues, in a meek voice.
“Ho, ho!” roared the Gray Stockings, while the White Pair joined in with a shrill giggle. “That beats all! Half by a policeman, and half by a rook! A fine way to dispose of a Christmas sweetmeat! Your boy must be a fool, Little Blues.”
“Not a fool at all,” said the Blue Pair indignantly. “Now just listen to me. Your girl ate hers up at once, and forgot it. Your boy traded his away; and what has he got? A broken knife, and a harmonica that can’t play music. I don’t call those worth having. My boy enjoyed his sweetmeat all day. He had more pleasure in giving it away than if he had eaten it ten times over! Beside he got half a crown for it. An old gentleman slipped it into his pocket because he was pleased with his kind heart. I saw him do it.”
“Half a crown!” ejaculated the White Pair, with amazement.
“That is something like,” admitted the Big Gray Stockings. “Your boy did the best of the three, I admit.”
The Little Blues said no more.
Presently the others fell asleep, but she lay and watched Jan as he rested peacefully beside his brother, with his wonderful treasure – the silver coin – clasped tight in his hand. He smiled in his sleep as though his dreams were pleasant.
“Even if he had no half-crown, still he would have done the best,” she whispered to herself at last.
Then the clock struck twelve, and the day after Christmas was begun.
THE WHIZZER
That was a cold evening. The snow was just as dry as flour, and had been beat down till the road looked slick as a ribbon far up and far down, and squeaked every step. I pulled Mrar on our sled. All the boys went home by the crick to skate, but I was