by vigorous scrubbing caused five pink fingertips to emerge from thick grime, she had said, on didacticism intent, “I think clean fingers are prettier than dirty.”
“So do I,” assented Wulfy; “but if you had a bad leg, and had to climb six pairs of stairs every time you washed yer hands, I guess yer fingers would go dirty.” To which argumentum ad hominem Miss Margaret had instantly succumbed.
On Christmas eve arrived Wulfy, his face one wide smile. In his hand he bore a trophy:—“I washed it myself,” he announced with unspeakable pride.
“I should think so!” gasped Miss Margaret.
It was a stocking. Rather it had been a stocking. Thick and slabby with dirt and grease it had evidently been dipped in water, squeezed out weakly by tiny fingers, and allowed to stiffen, rough-dry. Miss Margaret took it, handkerchief at face.
Wulfy viewed the stocking in her hand, and a shade of anxiety began to gather in his eyes. Toe and heel looked as if large bites had been taken out of them.
“Can yer tell Santa Claus something?” croaked Wulfy.
“Yes.”
“Tell him, then,”—with a look of uncanny wisdom,—“to put the orange in the toe. It can’t fall through, yer know, and it’ll keep the other things in.”
“I will,” promised Miss Margaret. And with due solemnity the stocking was hung.
Christmas was not many hours old when Wulfy came to welcome it. His face was clean in spots, to do honor to the occasion. Miss Margaret took him to the fireplace, his small body tense with expectation.
Santa Claus had remembered! He had remembered everything. There was even the orange in the toe; only, as the stocking was after all a very wee one, it had to be a mandarin. But there were the drum and the pony with real hair, warm stockings too, and mittens, and a muffler; yes, and a knife, and candy and raisins, and a large gold watch which would tick vigorously for over an hour when wound up.
If Miss Margaret had expected a demonstration, she was disappointed. Wulfy received his stocking in silence. The unpacking was an affair of time, for the little hands trembled so that they could not lift the packages nor untie the string, yet no one else was allowed to lay finger on the sacred treasures. At last it was accomplished, and the objects were ranged in a semicircle, Wulfy, cross-legged, like a Hindu idol, in the midst.
Then he broke silence.
“I got a gold watch!” he said, with a shaky sigh.
Nor could another word be extorted from him. This he repeated over and over, gazing at the gilt object as if hypnotized. Not his coveted pony, nor his ball, nor his drum, could hold his attention long. His eyes strayed back to the glittering watch, which he dangled speechless before each new-comer.
It was time for Wulfy to go home; and the journey was a function of state. In vain did Miss Margaret offer to help to carry the packages; he shook his head with determination. “Yer may go with me, though,” he announced graciously. “I’d ruther the boys.” So Wulfy was laden like a small pack-horse, and started from the house, bundles under each arm and the full stocking slung over his shoulder. By Miss Margaret’s side he hobbled joyful but exhausted. His feeble fingers dropped something every few steps, and not a raisin must be lost; his half-paralyzed side bent double under his burdens. As he jogged along, one boy after another of the street-urchins hailed him with surprise and glee, for Wulfy was known to them all.
“Hello, Wulfy!” “My eye, what a Christmas!” “Whatcher got?” met him on all sides. Wulfy’s grotesque little figure staggered under its bulky bundles with the proud and serene air of an Eastern prince. Secure in the protection of Miss Margaret, he answered briefly but freely.
“I got a gold watch,” was his response to every salutation. As they advanced, the walk became a triumphal procession. Boys sprang up from the paving-stones, poured from the alleys, dropped from the sky. In front marched Wulfy’s special friends Jakey and Fritz, as a guard of honor; behind and around was a crowd of boys of all sizes, hooting, curious and envious, and in the midst trudged Wulfy, laconic in his triumph, his stocking bobbing on his shoulder. The bright gold of the orange showed through the jagged toe. He was growing pale and breathless when at last the cavalcade halted at the entrance to a dilapidated court. He surveyed his followers an instant in silence, then, croaking a little louder than usual, he announced:
“Yer can go back now.”
And the boys went.
Miss Margaret waited. She hoped for an invitation to Wulfy’s home. But she received none.
“Good-by,” said Wulfy with dignity.
Thus dismissed, Miss Margaret murmured meekly, “Good-by,” and turned away. But another thought had struck him.
“Wait!” he called. “Where are yer going?”
“To church.”
Church was one of the ideas and probably one of the words which lay outside of Wulfy’s sphere; but perhaps he associated it dimly with beneficent powers, for he sidled a little nearer and wheezed with a touching sweetness of manner:
“Yer might tell Santa Claus as I liked all this stuff.”
For some time after Christmas Wulfy, to use his own phrase, did not “come over.” There was nothing surprising in this. He was irresponsible as a squirrel, and often would vanish, no one knew whither, for a month at a time. But at last, on a bitterly cold day, he reappeared. His rags were a little more sparse than usual, his face looked pinched, but he wore his familiar smile.
“Wulfy,” said Miss Margaret, “where are your new mittens?”
“I gave ’em to Jakey. Poor Jakey didn’t have any,” he said, looking at his blue fingers.
“And why don’t you wear your nice stockings?” for the little legs were incased in the old rags.
“Them stockings weren’t no good.”
“Why not?”
“Sho! they fitted tight! Stockings ought ter wrinkle. Like these. Then they keep yer legs warm. See?”
Miss Margaret saw: Wulfy’s wisdom was, as usual, convincing.
“I’ve seen Milly,” he announced.
“I’m glad. Was Milly pleased to see you?”
“Yes. She kissed me,” he said with shy pleasure. “They’re good to her. She has puddens twice a week. I gave Milly my gold watch.”
“Why, Wulfy! I thought you liked your gold watch.”
“Like it! Guess I did. ’T ain’t every feller as has a gold watch. Milly liked it too.”
Every shred of his Christmas gifts had vanished. To trace them was impossible. The pony, it seemed, and the candy had also gone to Milly. The knife, the ball, and all the rest had doubtless been distributed among the members of the youthful procession which had followed Wulfy through the street in his hour of triumph. He had not kept a peanut for himself.
“Wulfy,” said Miss Margaret soberly one day, willing to try him, “oh, Wulfy, where are your Christmas things? Aren’t you sorry they are all gone?”
Wulfy looked sober too for a minute, and his worldly-wise little lip quivered childishly. Then a smile broke over his face, he gave a brief chuckle, as was his wont when pleased, and then croaked jubilantly: “I had ’em once.”
Happy Wulfy! In this short sentence he had found a philosophy of life.
And Milly? Did Milly, who was a “bad girl” who had known a wild and secret life, did Milly care for a tin gold watch, for candy, and for a pony on wheels? Did she take them to please the little brother whose clinging loyalty may have been the one tie that held her to good? Or did the child perhaps still live in Milly,—poor Milly, who, although she was bad, was only twelve years old, after all,—and did she like the pony and watch