let us be thankful that he isn’t under the wheels, with a broken neck, or winding round and round the axle.”
“But what’s to be done?” said Mrs. Marten. “He says he’s hungry.”
“Tell you what!” said Mr. Burton, in his explosive way. “Put some food on a plate, and when the carriage comes round again I’ll jump aboard, and he can eat as he travels.”
“He loves purée of celery,” said Mrs. Marten.
“Very well. Put some in a clean lard-pail or a milk-pail. Little out of the ordinary, but so is the accident, and he can’t help his hunger. Hunger is no disgrace. I didn’t think he’d ever eat soup again, to tell the truth. I was making up my mind whether a wreath or a harp would be better.”
“Oh, you are so morbid, Mr. Burton,” said his wife, while Mrs. Marten told the maid to get a pail and put some purée into it.
When Thornton came around again he met Mr. Marten near Fortieth Street.
“Open the door, Orville, and Joe Burton will get aboard with some soup. You must be starved.”
There’s nothing like exercise for getting up an appetite. I’ll be ready for Burton,” said Orville. “Awfully sorry I can’t stop and talk; but I’ll see you again in a minute or two.”
He opened the door as he spoke, and then, to the great delight of at least a score of people who had realized that the automobile was running away, the rubicund and stout Joe Burton, a pail of purée in one hand and some table cutlery and silverware and a napkin in the other, made a dash at the vehicle, and with help from Orville effected an entrance.
“Merry Christmas!” said Orville.
“Merry Christmas! Awfully sorry, old man, but it might be worse. Better drink it out of the pail. They gave me a knife and fork, but they neglected to put in a spoon or a dish. I thought that you were probably killed, but I never imagined this. Miss Badeau was terribly worked up. I think that she had decided on white carnations. Nice girl. You could easily jump, old man, if you hadn’t sprained your foot. Hurt much?”
“Like the devil; but I’m glad it worried Miss Badeau. No, I don’t mean that. But you know.”
“Yes, I know,” said Burton, with a sociable smile. “Mm. Marten told me. Nice girl. Let her in next time. Unusual thing, you know. People are very apt to jump from a runaway vehicle, but it seldom takes up passengers. Let her get in, and you can explain matters to her. You see, she sails early in the morning, and you haven’t much time. You can tell her what a nice fellow you are, you know, and I’m sure you’ll have Mrs. Marten’s blessing. Here’s where I get out.”
With an agility admirable in one of his stoutness, Mr. Burton leaped to the street and ran up the steps to speak to Miss Badeau. Orville could see her blush, but there was no time for her to become a passenger that trip, and the young man once more made the circuit of the block, quite alone, but strangely happy.
He had never ridden with Annette, except once on the elevated road, and then both Mr. and Mrs. Marten were of the company.
Round sped the motor, and when the Martens’ appeared in sight, Annette was on the sidewalk with a covered dish in her hand and a look of excited expectancy on her face that added a hundredfold to its charms.
“Here you are—only ten cents a ride. Merry Christmas!” shouted Orville, gaily, and leaned half out of the automobile to catch her. It was a daring jump, but Annette made it without accident, and, flushed and excited, sat down in front of Mr. Thornton without spilling her burden, which proved to be sweetbreads.
“Miss Badeau—Annette, I hadn’t expected it to turn out this way, but of course your aunt doesn’t care, or she wouldn’t have let you come. We’re really in no danger. This driver has had more experience dodging teams in this last hour than he’d get in an ordinary year. They tell me you’re going to Europe early tomorrow, to leave all your friends. Now, I’ve something very important to say to you before you go. No, thanks, I don’t want anything more. That purée was very filling. I’ve sprained my ankle, and I need to be very quiet for a week or two, perhaps until this machine runs down, but at the end of that time would you—”
Orville hesitated, and Annette blushed sweetly. She set the sweetbreads down upon the seat beside her. Orville had never looked so handsome before to her eyes.
He hesitated. “Go on,” said she.
“Would you be willing to go to Paris on a bridal trip?”
Annette’s answer was drowned in the hurrah of the driver as the automobile, gradually slackening, came to a full stop in front of the Martens’.
But Orville read her lips, and as he handed his untouched sweetbreads to Mrs. Burton, and his sweetheart to her uncle, his face wore a seraphically happy expression; and when Mr. Marten and the driver helped him up the steps at precisely eight o’clock, Annette’s hand sought his, and it was a jolly party that sat down to a big though somewhat dried-up Rhode Island turkey.
“Marriage also is an accident,” said Mr. Burton.
A CHRISTMAS RESCUE, by Albert Bigelow Paine (1861-1937)
Imaginative play is the subject of this, the only story in the collection that was actually written for children. In this turn-of-the-century tale, a child’s wounded feelings are healed just in time for Christmas. Interestingly, the author, Albert Bigelow Paine, was employed as Mark Twain’s secretary, and wrote his authorized biography in 1912.
He had never really left home before, though he had threatened to do so many times. But on the day before Christmas he felt just obliged to go. This was the way of it.
Sister Alice, who was a great deal older than he was, being sixteen and graduated from a cooking-class, was making a lot of things in the kitchen. She hadn’t learned in cooking-school how to have little boys around when she was making things, so when he wanted to dig out the cake-leavings, just as he did when his mother baked, sister Alice, who of course felt very grown up, said “No!” quite severely. And when he wanted a piece of pie-crust to wad up and hammer out flat and bake on the corner of the cook-stove, she said “No!” again, not remembering that she was ever little herself, and then got quite cross, perhaps because her cake looked as if it might “fall,” and told him to go out of the kitchen, and stay out until she was all through!
He did go out of the kitchen, and went to the nursery to play “Indians” with little Dot. But when he swooped down on little Dot’s best doll, the only one that had lasted through from last Christmas, and was going to scalp her, and torture her, and burn her at the stake, little Dot screamed almost as loudly as if it were she who was to have all these things done to her, and ran to tell her mother, who was ironing in the laundry and very busy, and who sent back word that he was to put that doll down instantly, or he would be put to bed for two days and there would be no Christmas in that house for anybody!
It was then he said that he would go. There was no place for him in that house, anyway. So he put on his thick overcoat and arctic shoes, and his cap that pulled down over his ears. Then he took his pistol, that didn’t have any caps left, and his best agate taw, and told little Dot that he was going to Africa to fight tigers, and that on Christmas morning they would find him lying all dead, and that they would be very sorry!
Little Dot was already sorry, and began to whimper, but was afraid to tell her mother again, for fear he would go even farther than Africa, and that they would find him even deader and sooner than he had said. So she watched him through the window until she saw him go into the barn. Then she slipped out to get sister Alice to help her on with her coat and overshoes. Then she hurried after Dick, and pulled open the big slatted barn door, and found him bravely snapping his pistol at the mules.
“I’m killing tigers!” he said fiercely. I am Dick Daring, the king of the jungle! I shall be found here dead and eaten up alive on Christmas morning!”
The mules didn’t know they were being killed, or that they were to have a live boy for breakfast. They kept on pulling