Crinkle's Christmas Dinner, and What It Brought

“We're going to have the—oh! the very biggest kind of a turkey!” cried Crinkle in immense enthusiasm, and clasping her hands, “and salary, and—”

“What's salary?” interrupted one of the five children, hanging on her words with open mouths and wide eyes. “Say, Crinky, what a salary?”

“Oh! great, long, green things,” said Crinkle; “and it tastes—well, most awfully good!” She smacked her lips at the memory.

Just then mother's bell rang, and Crinkle started up so suddenly that she upset Toby, who slid off from her lap and rolled away by himself on the floor.

All the children raced after her to the very door of their mother's room, where they contended themselves with peeping through the key-hole, and speculating as to just what Crinkle had been sent for.

At last, after what seemed to them a perfect age, she came out with a very important face, and her best bonnet on, and her mother's big pocket-book in her hand, all ready for some sort of shopping expedition.

“Oh, let me go! let me go!” Each child set up a perfect shout, and huddled around her, teasing vociferously.

“No,” said Crinkle slowly, hating to refuse them. “Why, you can't, children; don't you know its Christmas time, and you mustn't know what I'm going to buy. Mother's head is so bad, she wants me to do it for her.”

Here Crinkle drew herself up, and looked so very tall and matronly that Henrietta, admiring it immensely, tried to do the same thing, but only succeeded in getting a crick in her back, when she came down to her original height quite satisfied.

“Only Toby must go to carry the basket,” said Crinkle, feeling very big and old; “and he's got to shut his eyes when I'm buying things, and promise not to peep.”

“Now, that's a perfect shame!” cried Henrietta in the greatest dudgeon, while Toby gave one whoop and flew off for his cap. 'You let him do everything, just 'cause he's a boy. Let me carry the basket; I sh'd think you might.”

“How you'd look,” said Crinkle, laughing, “lugging along a great heavy basket, Henrietta! No, Toby's the only boy we've got, and he must go.”

“Toby always is a boy, and he always gets all the best things,” cried Henrietta wildly, who never could get over it because she had been born a girl; “I don't care; I'm going to tag—so there, Crinkle, I am!” she declared desperately.

“The first one that tags,” said Crinkle, looking around solemnly on the little group, “shan't have one bite of the Christmas dinner, but shall stand in the corner and see us all eat it.”

At this dreadful threat a sudden silence fell upon them all, so that you could have heard a pin drop. When they came out of it, Crinkle had departed, with Toby, swinging the big basket, triumphantly in the rear.

They went down first to the market, and told the man to send the turkey and all its accompaniments that Mrs. Pierpont had picked out the day before, then turned into the broad main thoroughfare where the shops were gay with holiday trimming: and goods, and crowded with happy customers.

“Tm glad we ain't poor,” observed Toby, reflectively, swinging the empty basket to the danger of every one's toes who had the pleasure to meet him. “We're most awful rich,—ain't we, Crinkle?” he asked suddenly.

“Not so very,” said Crinkle, honestly. “Take care there, Toby! Look out where you're going!” She pulled him up just in time to save him from getting a smart cuff on his ear from an enraged teamster, who was walking on the pavement while he had an eye to his horse in the street. He gave the small boy a shove that sent his cap over his eyes, and would have bestowed other attentions, in return for a whack, as the basket swung around suddenly against his legs, if Crinkle hadn't twitched Toby off out of reach.

Toby turned around, and glared after the big, slouching figure.

“He's a bad old man!” he said vindictively; “an' I don't b'lieve he's got any little boys at home, an' he don't know it's Christmas to-morrow; does he, Crinkle— say?”

“No, I guess not, Toby,” said Crinkle, answering both questions at once, and settling his cap somewhere near the middle of his head. “But you shouldn't go along so careless, a-knocking your basket into folkses legs and feet. If you can't keep it straight, I'll have to send you home. Well, come on now.” And she began to walk brisk'y along the crowded pavement.

“Folkses feet is so big,” cried Toby, sticking the big basket straight in front of him, in great alarm at Crinkle's threat, thereby giving to promenaders coming toward them an impression of the basket carrying the boy, “that there ain't no place to go. Wa-it, Cri-nk-y!” he wailed, trotting after her rapid footsteps as fast as his short fat legs would allow.

“You are so slow!” exclaimed Crinkle, turning around impatiently. “Here,do give me that dreadful old basket, and come along.”

“No, I'm a-going to carry it myself—I am!” screamed Toby in a fright, and tugging wildly at the handle, while he whirled around and around in the middle of the pavement with it, to prevent his sister from catching hold anywhere.

“Ain't you ashamed?” cried Crinkle, her cheeks growing hotter and hotter as she thought what a spectacle they must make.

“What's the matter with the boy?” asked an old gentleman, peering at them anxiously over hia spectacles. “Has he got a fit?”

“N-no, sir,” stammered Crinkle, turning her rosy face down, while she tried to answer, “only he wants to carry the basket. He thinks he's a boy an' he ought to; and besides, Toby always is good,” she added generously, with a reassuring smile at the little fellow, who was staring up at the old gentleman.

“That's right, my boy; that's a good child!” cried the old gentleman in the heartiest tones, while he bestowed a fatherly pat on the little skull-cap. “Always look out for your sisters, and carry all the baskets. Ha, ha, ha!” And with a series of chuckles, and a keen look at Crinkle, which she didn't see, he stopped and watched them go on.

“There,” said Toby triumphantly, “he said I was good, that man did,” and he pointed his little dingy thumb in the direction of their new friend, “Crinkle—so! An' I'm a-going to do it some more now, I am!” And he exhibited lively preparations for another dance to warm his cold little toes.

“Toby,” said Crinkle suddenly, at her wits' end to make him stop, “see, here is one of the shops where mother told me to buy things. Now, says I, we must go right straight in!” With a merry little laugh she picked hold of his jacket sleeve and held it fast, while she towed him up the steps.

Toby, nothing loath, followed gladly; and so pushed and shoved his way among the people that he soon stood by Crinkle's side, in front of a counter laden with all manner of pretty things that could delight the heart of a child.

Still clinging to his basket, he edged himself in wherever there was the least chance of Crinkle's gaining the ear of one of the busy shopmen; and with eyes stretched to their widest extent, he gave himself up to the business of the hour.

“Now, Toby,” said Crinkle with a very important air, “you must go down to the other end of' the shop, an' look at some of the things there; I've got to buy presents now. “Run along; that's a good boy,” she added in a tone just as near her mother's as she could get it.

“Oh no! I don't want to,” said Toby, instantly. “I'm going to stay right straight here.—I am! I don't want to go way off down there,I don't,” he finished in an extremely injured tone.

“Why, you'll see every single thing I get!” cried Crinkle in despair, “and then you'll tell the other children, and, besides, you'll know what you're going to have in your own stocking. Now, Toby Pierpont, you must go 'way!”

“?'ain't nice down there,” cried Toby, showing signs of a decided howl, and clinging with one hand to the counter with all his might; “and you're going to buy and buy behind my back. Boo—hoo—hoo!”

“Why, that's what I came for,” cried Crinkle, almost out of patience; and she raised her hand to drag him away from the counter, when something her mother had said as she kissed her good-bye flashed through her mind, “Be a kind little mother to the children!”

Down fell Crinkle's hand by her side, and the little pucker on her forehead gave place to a loving light that shone on every one who chanced to look. “Now then,” she cried merrily, moving off a step or two, “I'm going down to the other end to look around. There's lots and lots of things, Toby, I can see 'em clear here; drums and soldiers, and trumpets, and just everything; come, I'm going!” she finished in immense enthusiasm, looking back.

“Then I am!” exclaimed Toby cheerfully; and wiping his tearful eyes on the back of his grimy little hand, he commenced to clamber after her in the greatest alacrity.

“And so am I too!” cried a hearty voice close to them, so big and loud it seemed as if it filled the whole shop. “You've got to take me along, because you see I want to look at the things too. Ha, ha, ha!”

Toby skipped, as far as he could for the heavy basket, away from the voice; while Crinkle gazed in utter amazement, and everybody in the shop just stared with all their might.

“You said I was good,” exclaimed the little fellow in his loudest tone, “now, ain't I? I want to buy things too; now ain't I good?” And he crammed so near the owner of the big, loud voice—a fat old gentleman—that Crinkle trembled with nervousness.

“Come on, my boy,” said the old gentleman, wisely ignoring the question; and, possessing himself of one of Toby's hands, he just marched him instanter down the whole length of the big shop.

“Now then—whew!” he ejaculated, stopping to take breath, and wiping his face with an enormous red silk handkerchief, “that was a walk, I tell you!”

But Toby didn't hear; he had cast away his precious basket, and was wildly hanging over an array of soldiers wherein his soul delighted perfectly oblivious to all other things.

The old gentlemen quietly confiscated the discarded basket, which had tumbled off on the floor by itself. Then he said a few words in a low voice to a salesman near.

Crinkle, meanwhile, was lost in thought, a short distance off, trying to calculate to a penny her slender stock of money, to see if she could compass the drum for Toby she saw hanging up over her head.

“He does want one so bad,” she thought with a sigh, looking over at the little fellow's absorption, “and he's perfectly crazy after soldiers. Oh my!”

For one second she stood perfectly still, her eyes dilating with the greatest astonishment. The next, she sprang quickly to the old gentleman's side.

“Oh, sir!” she began in the greatest distress, and touching his arm to attract attention, “please don't, sir! Oh! mother wouldn't like it—she wouldn't!”

“It's Christmas time!” said the old gentleman, lifting a very red face, and proceeding to tuck in another immense bundle into the already well-filled basket, “And I always do just what I have a mind to then. Now then, sir, everything's in but just a drum. We must crowd that in some way.”

“Here's one,” said the salesman quickly, taking down the object of Crinkle's admiration. “Now, sir, where shall we send the basket?” he asked obsequiously.

“You needn't send it anywhere,” said the old gentle- man coolly, and laying down a generous bank-bill, “this boy and I will see it home safely.” He took up his change, which somehow tumbled into the bottom of the basket, and not heeding in the least Crinkle's torrent of protestations, laid hold of Toby's arm, “Come, my boy, we're ready. Now then, take hold of the other end of this basket.”

As in a dream, Toby obeyed, and allowed himself to be led unresistingly off.

“Now,” the old gentleman no sooner stepped off from the lower step on to the pavement than he gave vent to a peal of such jolly laughter that it did everybody good who was fortunate enough to hear it.

“When children are kind to each other,” he said at last, wiping his eyes violently, “and patient,” here he glanced at Crinkle sharply, “they need some one to come along and give 'em a lift. Ha, ha, ha!”

“Are you Santa Claus?” asked Toby loudly, and puffing smartly in his frantic efforts to keep up with the long strides of their new friend. “Say, are you?”

“Why?” asked the old gentleman, dreadfully pleased.

“Oh! cause he's big and fat, and he's got a red face,” said Toby confidently. “Say, are you?”

“Toby!” began Crinkle, terribly distressed.

“Don't stop him, child! Pray, don't,” said the ald gentleman, immensely amused. “Well, if you want to call me Santa Claus, you may. And now, pray, who are you?” he said, glancing down at the sturdy little figure hanging on to the other end of the basket.

“I'm Toby Pierpont,” said the little fellow, proudly; “and she's Crinkle,” he added, “only that ain't her real name; it's Augusta; and mother's Mrs. Pierpont, and”—

But his enumeration of his family names was summarily cut short by the old gentleman's dropping his side of the basket handle, and with a sharp exclamation backing up against a neighboring fence to catch his breath.

“Oh! are you sick, sir?” cried Crinkle, running up to him sympathizingly. “O Toby! what shall we do?”

“Augusta Pierpont! Augusta Pierpont! Did—your—mother—ever—tell you—about—your Uncle—Ben,—children?” said the old gentleman in the greatest anxiety, waiting for their reply.

Before Crinkle could answer, Toby set down the heavy basket and hopped from one too to the other in huge delight. “Oh! I guess she did;” he cried excitedly; “he went way off in a big ship, and he was good, an' he didn't never come back, and, when I'm a big man ''m going to look for him, I am!”

The old gentleman answered never a word, only drew a long breath, and, starting for the basket again, he motioned silently for Toby to take hold of the other end, and when Toby had got a firm grip, away they marched to their destination.

When they reached the little bit of a house the children called “home,” the old gentleman gave one keen glance, and ejaculating “Hum! haw!” set down the basket on the upper step, just as a perfect troop of chil- dren flung open the door, and with whoops and shouts of glee commenced to drag the two Christmas buyers and their heavy burden in.

“You tell your mother,” said the old gentleman, turning to Crinkle,—how his eyes glistened,—“that I'm coming to eat my Christmas dinner with her to-morrow.” And like a flash he was gone.

“Who was it?” cried Henrietta, stopping her trying to rummage in the basket,—“that awful big man who came with you; say?”

“It's Santa Claus,” exclaimed Toby, stumbling into the house, “and he's buyed us lots of things, and he said I was good. Go 'way there, Henrietta!” he cried, with a pinch on her active little fingers at work again on the basket.

“Santa Claus!” cried one and all in delight, while Henrietta pulled back her fingers and set up a dismal wail.

“You're the meanest, selfishest thing, Toby Pierpont;” she cried through her tears, “you're a boy, and you can carry baskets, and now you've been out walking with Santa Claus! Oh dear, de—”

“Children!” it was the mother's voice from the little old bedroom,—the mother's voice with a happy, happy ring. And racing in, the whole brood found Crinkle hanging over her pillows, with a face expressive of the greatest delight.

“There's a Christmas present coming to-morrow,” said the mother in glad, happy tones, “that's too big to put in your stockings, but it's coming at dinner-time. Children, it's your Uncle Ben!”