NIBSY'S CHRISTMAS

NIBSY'S CHRISTMAS


It was Christmas-eve over on the East Side. Darkness was closing in on a
cold, hard day. The light that struggled through the frozen windows of
the delicatessen store, and the saloon on the corner, fell upon men with
empty dinner-pails who were hurrying homeward, their coats buttoned
tightly, and heads bent against the steady blast from the river, as if
they were butting their way down the street.

The wind had forced the door of the saloon ajar, and was whistling
through the crack; but in there it seemed to make no one afraid. Between
roars of laughter, the clink of glasses and the rattle of dice on the
hard-wood counter were heard out in the street. More than one of the
passers-by who came within range was taken with an extra shiver in which
the vision of wife and little ones waiting at home for his coming was
snuffed out, as he dropped in to brace up. The lights were long out when
the silent streets re-echoed his unsteady steps toward home, where the
Christmas welcome had turned to dread.

But in this twilight hour they burned brightly yet, trying hard to
pierce the bitter cold outside with a ray of warmth and cheer. Where the
lamps in the delicatessen store made a mottled streak of brightness
across the flags, two little boys stood with their noses flattened
against the window. Their warm breath made little round holes on the
frosty pane, that came and went, affording passing glimpses of the
wealth within, of the piles of smoked herring, of golden cheese, of
sliced bacon and generous, fat-bellied hams; of the rows of odd-shaped
bottles and jars on the shelves that held there was no telling what good
things, only it was certain that they must be good from the looks of
them.

And the heavenly smell of spices and things that reached the boys
through the open door each time the tinkling bell announced the coming
or going of a customer! Better than all, back there on the top shelf the
stacks of square honey-cakes, with their frosty coats of sugar, tied in
bundles with strips of blue paper.

The wind blew straight through the patched and threadbare jackets of the
lads as they crept closer to the window, struggling hard with the frost
to make their peep-holes bigger, to take in the whole of the big cake
with the almonds set in; but they did not heed it.

"Jim!" piped the smaller of the two, after a longer stare than usual;
"hey, Jim! them's Sante Clause's. See 'em?"

"Sante Claus!" snorted the other, scornfully, applying his eye to the
clear spot on the pane. "There ain't no ole duffer like dat. Them's
honey-cakes. Me 'n' Tom had a bite o' one wunst."

"There ain't no Sante Claus?" retorted the smaller shaver, hotly, at his
peep-hole. "There is, too. I seen him myself when he cum to our alley
last----"

"What's youse kids a-scrappin' fur?" broke in a strange voice.

Another boy, bigger, but dirtier and tougher looking than either of the
two, had come up behind them unobserved. He carried an armful of unsold
"extras" under one arm. The other was buried to the elbow in the pocket
of his ragged trousers.

The "kids" knew him, evidently, and the smallest eagerly accepted him as
umpire.

"It's Jim w'at says there ain't no Sante Claus, and I seen him----"

"Jim!" demanded the elder ragamuffin, sternly, looking hard at the
culprit; "Jim! y'ere a chump! No Sante Claus? What're ye givin' us? Now,
watch me!"

With utter amazement the boys saw him disappear through the door under
the tinkling bell into the charmed precincts of smoked herring, jam, and
honey-cakes. Petrified at their peep-holes, they watched him, in the
veritable presence of Santa Claus himself with the fir-branch, fish out
five battered pennies from the depths of his pocket and pass them over
to the woman behind the jars, in exchange for one of the bundles of
honey-cakes tied with blue. As if in a dream they saw him issue forth
with the coveted prize.

"There, kid!" he said, holding out the two fattest and whitest cakes to
Santa Claus's champion; "there's yer Christmas. Run along, now, to yer
barracks; and you, Jim, here's one for you, though yer don't desarve it.
Mind ye let the kid alone."

"This one'll have to do for me grub, I guess. I ain't sold me 'Newses,'
and the ole man'll kick if I bring 'em home."

And before the shuffling feet of the ragamuffins hurrying homeward had
turned the corner, the last mouthful of the newsboy's supper was
smothered in a yell of "Extree!" as he shot across the street to
intercept a passing stranger.

* * * * *

As the evening wore on it grew rawer and more blustering still. Flakes
of dry snow th