The Story of a Whim (2 page)

The young man, still insisting that the freight was not his, followed the agent reluctantly over to the station, accompanied by several of his companions, who had nothing better to do than to see the joke out.

There it was, a box, a bundle, and a packing-case, all labeled plainly and most mysteriously, "Christie W. Bailey, Pine Ridge, Fla."

The man who owned the name could scarcely believe his eyes. He knew of no one who would send him anything. An old neighbor had forwarded the few things he had saved from the sale of the old farm after his father and mother died, and the neighbor had since died him
self; so this could not be something forgotten.

He felt annoyed at the arrival of the mystery, and did not know what to do with the things, but at last brought over the wagon and reluctant pony, and with the help of the other men got them loaded on, the pony meanwhile eying his load with dislike and meditating how slow he could make his gait on account of his burden.

Christie Bailey did not wait at the store that night as long as he usually did. He had intended going home by moonlight, but decided to try to make it before the sun went down. He wanted to understand about that freight at once. He found when he went back to the post-office that he could not sit with the same pleasure on a nail-keg and talk as usual. His mind was on the wagonload. He bought a few things, and started home.

The sun had b
rought the short winter-day suddenly to a close, as it has a habit of doing in Florida, by dropping out of sight and leaving utter darkness with no twilight.

Christie lighted an old lantern, and got the things into the cabin at once. Then he took his hatchet and
screwdriver, and set to work.

First the
packing-case, for he instinctively felt that herein lay the heart of the matter. But not until he had taken the entire front off the case and taken out the handsome organ did he fully realize what had come to him.

More puzzled than ever, he stood back with his arms folded, and whistled. He saw the key attached to a card, and, unlocking the organ, touched gently one of the ivory keys with his rough finger, as one might touch a being from another world.

Then he glanced about to see where he should put it; and suddenly, even in the dull, smoky lamplight, the utter gloom and neglect of the place burst upon him. Without more ado he selected the freest side of the room, and shoved everything out of the way.

Then h
e brought a broom and swept it clean. After that he set the organ against the wall, and stood back to survey the effect. The disorderly table and the rusty stove were behind him, and the organ gave the spot a strange, cleared-up appearance.

He did not feel
at home. He turned to the confusion behind him. Something must be done before he opened anything more. He felt somehow as if the organ was a visitor, and must not see his poor housekeeping.

He seized the
frying-pan, scraped the contents into the yard, and called the dog. The dishes he put into a wooden tub outside the door, and pumped water over them. Then the mass of papers and boxes on table and chairs he piled into the darkest corner on the floor, straightened the row of boots and shoes, and, having done all that he could, he came back to the roll and box still unopened.

The roll came first. He undid the strings with awkward fingers, and stood back in admiration once more when he brought to light a thick, bright rug and
a Japanese screen.

He spread
the rug down, and puzzled sometime over the screen, as to its use, but finally stood it up in front of the worst end of the room and began on his box.

There, at last, on the top was a letter in a fine, unknown hand. He opened it slowly, the blood mounting into his face, he knew not why, and
read:

"DEAR CHRISTIE:—
You see I am so sure you are a girl of my own age that I have concluded to begin my letter informally, and wish you a very merry Christmas and a glad, bright New Year. Of course you may be an old lady or a nice, comfortable, middle-aged one; and then perhaps you will think we are very silly; but we hope and believe you are a girl like ourselves, and so our hearts have opened to you, and we are sending you some things for Christmas."

There followed an account of the afternoon at the freight-station, written in Hazel's most winning way, in which the words and ways and almost the voices
and faces of Victoria Landis and Ruth and Esther and Marion and all the rest were shadowed forth.

The color on the young man's face deepened as he read, and he glanced up uneasily at his few poor chairs and miserable couch; then before he read further he went and pulled the screen along to hide more of the confusion.

He read the letter through, his heart waking up to the world and to longings he had never known he possessed before,—to the world in which Christmas has a place and in which young, bright life gives forth glad impulses; read to the end even, where Hazel inscribed her bit of a sermon full of good wishes and a little tender prayer that the spirit of Christmas might reign in that home and that the organ might be a help and a blessing to all around.

There was a pitiful look of almost helpless misery on the young man's face when he had finished. The good old times when God had been a reality
were suddenly brought into his reckless, isolated life, and he knew that God was God, even though he had neglected Him so long, and that tomorrow was Christmas Day.

As a refuge from his own
thoughts he turned back to the brimming box.

The first article he took out was a pair of dainty knit lavender bedroom slippers with black and white ermine edges and
delicate satin bows. Emily Whitten's aunt had knit them for her to take to college with her; and, Emily's feet being many sizes smaller than her aunt supposed, she had never worn them, and had tucked them in at the last minute to make a safe resting-place for a delicate glass vase, which she said would be lovely to hold flowers, on the organ, Sundays.

They had written their nonsense thoughts on bits of labels all over the things, these gay young girls;
and the young man read and smiled, and finally laughed aloud. He felt like a little boy just opening his first Christmas stocking.

He unpinned the paper on the couch-cover, and read in Victoria's large, stylish, angular hand full directions for putting it on the couch. He glanced with a twinge of shame at the old lounge, and realized that these gay girls had seen all his shabby belongings and pitied him, and he half-resented the whole thing, until the delight of being
pitied and cared for overcame his bitterness, and he laughed again.

Green, soft and restful, had been chosen for the couch-cover; and it could not have fitted better if Victoria Landis had secretly had a
tape-measure in her pocket and measured the couch, which perhaps she did on her second trip to the freight-house.

Ruth Summers had made the pillows—there were two of them, and they were
large and comfortable and sensible, of harmonizing greens and browns and a gleam of gold here and there.

With careful attention to the directions, the new owner arrayed his old lounge, and placed the pillows as directed, "with a throw and a pat, not laid stiffly," from a postscript in Ruth's clear feminine hand. Then he stood back in awe that a thing so familiar and so ugly could suddenly assume such an air of ease and elegance. Would he ever be able to bring the rest of the room up to the same standard?

But the box invited further investigation. There was a bureau set of dainty blue and white, a cover for the top and a pincushion to match. There were also a few yards of the material and a rough sketch with directions for a possible dressing-table, to be made of a wooden box in case Christie had no bureau.

It was from Emily Whitten, and she said she could not remember seeing a bureau among the things, but
she was sure any girl would know how to fix one up, and perhaps be glad of some new fixings for it.

At these things the young man looked helplessly, and finally went out into the
moon light, and hunted up an old box which he brushed off with the broom and brought inside, where he clumsily spread out the blue and white frills over its splintery top, and then solemnly tried to stick a pin into the cushion, fumbling in the lapel of his coat for one.

He was growing more and more bewildered with his new possessions, and as each came to light he began to wonder how he was going to be able to entertain and keep up to such a lot of fineries.

Mother Winship had put in a gay knit afghan which looked well over the couch, and next came a layer of Sunday-school singing-books, a Bible, and some lesson leaves. A card said that Esther Wakefield had sent these and she hoped they would be a help in the new Sunday school.

The followed a ro
ll of blackboard doth, a large cloth map of Palestine, and a box of chalk; and the young man grew more and more helpless. This was worse than the bureau set and the slippers. What was he to do with them all? He start a Sunday school! He would be much more likely to start children in the opposite way from heaven if he went on as he had been going the last two years.

His face hardened, and he was almost ready to sweep the whole lot back into the box, nail them up, and send them back where they came from. What did he want of a lot of
trash with a set of such burdensome obligations attached?"

But
curiosity made him go back to see what there was left in the box, and a glance around his room made him unwilling to give up all this luxury.

He looked curiously at the box of fluffy lace things with Marion Halstead's card lying
atop. He could only guess that they were some girl's fixings, and he wondered vaguely what he should do with them. Then he unwrapped a photograph of the six girls which had been hurriedly taken and was inscribed, "Guess which is which," with a list of their names written on a circle of paper like spokes to a wheel.

He studied each face with interest, and somehow it was for the writer of the letter that he sought, Hazel
Winship. And he thought he should know her at once.

This was going to be very interesting. It would while away some of the long hou
rs when there was nothing worthwhile to do, and keep him from thinking how long it took orange groves to pay, and what hard luck he had always had.

He decided at first glance that the one in the centre with the clear eyes and firm, sweet mouth was the instigator of all this bounty; and, as his eyes travelled from one face to another and came back to hers each time, he felt
more sure of it. There was something frank and pleasant in her gaze. Somehow it would not do to send that girl back her things and tell her he was in no need of her charity. He liked to think she had thought of him, even though she did think of him as a poor discouraged girl or an old mammy.

He stood
the picture up against the lace of the pincushion, and forever gave up the idea of trying to send those things back.

There seemed to be one thing more in the bottom of the box, and it
was fastened inside another protecting board. He took it at last from its wrappings—a large picture, Hermann's head of Christ, framed in broad dark Flemish oak to match the tint of the etching.

Dimly he understood
who was the subject of the picture, although he had never seen it before. Silently he found a nail and drove it deep into the log of the wall. Just over the organ he hung it, without the slightest hesitation. He had recognized at once where this picture belonged, and knew that it, and not the bright rug, nor the restful couch, nor the gilded screen, nor even the organ itself, was to set the standard henceforth for his home and his life.

He knew this all in an undertone, without its quite coming to the surface of his consciousness. He was weary by this time, with the unusual excitement of the occasion, and much bewildered. He felt like a person suddenly lifted up a little way from the earth and obliged again
st his will to walk along unsupported in the air.

His mind was in a perfect whirl. He looked from one new thing to another, wondering more and more what they expected of him. The ribbons and lace of the bureau fixings worried him, and the lace collars and pincushion. What had he to do with such? Those foolish little slippers mocked him with a something that was not in his life, a something for which he was not even trying to fit himself. The organ and the books and, above all, the picture seemed to dominate him and demanded of him
things which he could never give. A Sunday school! What an absurdity! He!

And
the eyes in the picture seemed to look into his soul, and to say, all quietly enough, that He had come here now to live, to take command of his home and its occupant.

He rebelled against it, and turned away from the picture. He seemed to hate all the things, and yet the comfort of them drew him irresistibly.

In sheer weariness at last he put out his light, and, wrapping his old blankets about him, lay down upon the rug; for he would not disturb the couch lest the morning should dawn and his new dream of comfort look as if it had fled away. Besides, how was he ever to get it together again? And, when the morning broke and Christie awoke to the splendor of his things by daylight, the wonder of it all dawned, too, and he went about his work with the same spell still upon him.