The Second Christmas Megapack. Гарриет Бичер-Стоу
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there were secret whisperings, more scurryings, and frenzied warnings for the father not to come into the room. In spite of himself, Langshaw began to get a little curious as to the tobacco jar or the fire shovel, or whatever should be his portion. He not only felt resigned to not having the trout-rod, but a sort of wonder also rose in him that he had been bewitched—even momentarily—into thinking he could have it. What did it matter anyway?
“It’s worth it, old girl, isn’t it?” he said cryptically as he and Clytie met once unexpectedly in the hall, and he put his arm round her.
“Yes!” answered his wife, her dark eyes lustrous. Sometimes she didn’t look much older than little Mary. “One thing, though, I must say: I do hope, dear, that—the children have been thinking so much of our present to you and saving up so for it—I do hope, Joe, that if you are pleased you’ll show it. So far as I’m concerned, it doesn’t matter; but sometimes—when, of course, I know how pleased you really are—you don’t show it at once to others. That’s why I hope you’ll show it tomorrow if—”
“Great Scott! Clytie, let up on it! What do you want me to do—jump up and down and make a fool of myself?” asked her husband scornfully. “You leave me alone!”
It was Langshaw’s firm rule, vainly protested even by his wife, that the household should have breakfast on Christmas Day before tackling the stockings—a hurried mockery of a meal, to be sure, yet to his masculine idea a reënforcement of food for the infant stomach before the long, hurtling joy of the day. The stockings and the piles under them were taken in order, according to age—the youngest first and the others waiting in rapt interest and admiration until their turn arrived—a pretty ceremony.
In the delicious revelry of Baby’s joy, as her trembling, fat little fingers pulled forth dolls and their like, all else was forgotten until it was Mary’s turn, and then George’s, and then the mother’s. And then, when he had forgotten all about it: “Now father!” There was seemingly a breathless moment while all eyes turned to him. “It’s father’s turn now; father’s going to have his presents. Father, sit down here on the sofa—it’s your turn now.”
There were only a blue cornucopia and an orange and a bottle of olives in his stocking, a Christmas card from his sister Ella, a necktie from grandmamma, and nothing, as his quick eye had noted, under it on the floor; but now George importantly stooped down, drew a narrow package from under the sofa and laid it beside his father, pulling off the paper. Inside was a slim, longish, gray linen bag. Langshaw studied it for a moment before opening it.
“Well, I’ll be jiggered!” he breathed, with a strange glance round at the waiting group and an odd, crooked smile. “I’ll be jiggered!”
There in its neatly grooved sections lay the rod, ready to be put together—not a rod, but, as his eye almost unbelievingly reassured him, the rod—the ticket of the shop adorning it—in all its beauty of golden shellac and delicate tip. His fingers touched the pieces reverently.
“Well, will you look at that! How did you ever think of getting it?”
“How did I think of it? Because you talked about it all the time,” said his wife scornfully, with her arms round his neck from behind, while the children flung themselves upon him. “Oh, I know you thought you didn’t; but you did just the same. George heard you, too. We got Mr. Wickersham to pick it out. He said it was the one you wanted. And the reel—you haven’t noticed that box there—the reel is the right kind, he says; and the line is silk—the best. There’s the book of flies too—six. Baby’s crazy over them! Mr. Wickersham said it was all just what you ought to have. We’ve been saving up for the longest time; but we had to wait, you see, for George’s deportment before the things could be bought. If it isn’t right—”
“Right? Say, this is the finest present I ever had!” said Langshaw with glittering eyes and that little crooked smile. “It just beats everything!”
He rose, scattering his adoring family, and, walking to the window, threw it open to the frosty December air and called across to a neighbor standing on the walk.
“Want to come over here, Hendon? Got something to show you. Will you look at this! Present from my wife and the kids—been saving up for it. It’s a peach, I’ll tell you that! I’m going to take George off fishing this spring—What? Well, come over later, when you’ve got time to take a good look at it.”
“Do you like it, father?” came from three different voices at once.
“Do I like it? You can just bet I do,” said Langshaw emphatically. He bent and kissed the three upturned faces, and leaned toward his wife afterward to press her sweet waiting lips with his; but his eyes, as if drawn by a magnet, were only on the rod—not the mere bundle of sticks he might have bought, but transformed into one blossoming with love.
“And do you know, we hardly saw a thing of him all day!” Clytie proudly recounted afterward to her sister. “My dear, he would hardly take time to eat his dinner or speak to any one; he was out in the back yard with Henry Wickersham and Mr. Hendon until dark, flapping that rod in circles—the silliest thing! He nearly sent a hook into George’s eye once. George acted as bewitched as he did. Joe kept telling every single person who came along that it was ’a present from his wife and the kids.’ He certainly showed that he was pleased.”
“It’s been a pretty nice day, hasn’t it?” Langshaw said to his wife that Christmas night when the children were at last in bed. “Best Christmas I ever had! To think of you and the kids doing all this for me.”
His hand rested lovingly on the rod, now once again swathed in the gray linen bag. He would have been the last to realize that, in his humble way, he typified a diviner Fatherhood to the little family who trusted in his care for them—for all things came of him, and of his own had they given him.
AND ALL THE EARTH A GRAVE, by C.C. MacApp
There’s nothing wrong with dying—it just hasn’t ever had the proper sales pitch!
It all began when the new bookkeeping machine of a large Midwestern coffin manufacturer slipped a cog, or blew a transistor, or something. It was fantastic that the error—one of two decimal places—should enjoy a straight run of okays, human and mechanical, clear down the line; but when the figures clacked out at the last clacking-out station, there it was. The figures were now sacred; immutable; and it is doubtful whether the President of the concern or the Chairman of the Board would have dared question them—even if either of those two gentlemen had been in town.
As for the Advertising Manager, the last thing he wanted to do was question them. He carried them (they were the budget for the coming fiscal year) into his office, staggering a little on the way, and dropped dazedly into his chair. They showed the budget for his own department as exactly one hundred times what he’d been expecting. That is to say, fifty times what he’d put in for.
When the initial shock began to wear off, his face assumed an expression of intense thought. In about five minutes he leaped from his chair, dashed out of the office with a shouted syllable or two for his secretary, and got his car out of the parking lot. At home, he tossed clothes into a travelling bag and barged toward the door, giving his wife a quick kiss and an equally quick explanation. He didn’t bother to call the airport. He meant to be on the next plane east, and no nonsense about it.…
* * * *
With one thing and another, the economy hadn’t been exactly in overdrive that year, and predictions for the Christmas season were gloomy. Early retail figures bore them out. Gift buying dribbled along feebly until Thanksgiving, despite brave speeches by the Administration. The holiday passed more in self-pity than in thankfulness among owners of gift-oriented businesses.
Then, on Friday following Thanksgiving, the coffin ads struck.
Struck may be too mild a word. People on the streets saw feverishly-working crews (at holiday rates!) slapping up posters on billboards. The first poster was a dilly. A toothy and toothsome young woman leaned over a coffin she’d been unwrapping. She smiled as if she’d just received overtures of matrimony from an