Fortune’s Christmas - ebook

CHAPTER I

THERE was no need for the noise or for the expense of an alarm clock in the house of Anthony Hazzard. For a full forty years, now, he had never failed to waken promptly at five in the morning. The bright summer season and the dark winter mornings made no difference to him. His eyes opened punctually at that hour.

Neither did he waken with a clouded brain like those of the riotous indulgers who fall asleep with heavily filled stomachs. But when his eyes opened, his brain opened, also, and all his senses were keen as the nose of a hungry wolf.

For an instant he remained in bed without stirring, feeling the house quiver and moan under the strength of that December wind. And on the windowpanes the sleet, blown into level streaks by the gale, kept up a continual small musketry. Anthony Hazzard listened, well content. That gale was icing the hills and the lower mountains; the upper peaks, of course, had been gathered in an Arctic whiteness for a month. But it was early for such weather as this on the lowlands. It was early, and being early it would be unexpected by fools who were not armed, as he was, against all calamities. And every buffet the wind struck against his house was a blow struck at folly.

Moreover, it was a profitable storm–to him. For this sharp fall of the thermometer and this whipping storm meant hundreds or thousands of dead cattle on the range. He could see them now, head down, backs covered with ice, wandering helplessly before the wind until some fence line stopped them, where they would stand leaning against the fence, leaning against one another, while the snow piled on their backs, melted, froze again, and gradually sank the deadly chill deeper and deeper toward their vitals.

When those cows died, whose would be the profit? Those whose warm barns and provident supplies of hay afforded food and shelter for their herds. But most of all, the advantage was to the money-lender. Not so much to the banks, for their rates of interest were more or less fixed. But Anthony Hazzard had no fixed rates. He was a free adventurer in finance. He dealt with lost causes and with sinking ships. No paltry five or six percent for him! But when a man in vast need came to him and begged for money, he would always listen. Yes, there was money in his coffers for those in want. Even without security he had been known to advance it. But, at twenty percent interest the men he had “saved” slaved for him the rest of their days. Such a storm as this was sure to coin more desperadoes, men faced with ruin, men willing to sell their souls for a little ready cash. And that was why he smiled into the blanketing darkness of that December morning as he listened to the beat of the storm.

He saw himself as a grand figure, clothed with thunder, one who made calamity his very companion and table mate. Such was the inward picture of himself with which he filled his brain before he rose.

He fumbled first for his boots, which he always left near the head of his bed. And a thrill of warm satisfaction passed through him as he thumbed the leather. It was good, honest cowhide, strong as steel, and as uncomfortable. But how enduring. Eighteen months before he had bought them from a foolish store where they were unprized merely because a customer had worn them for a single day.

Pride ate the country down, he decided. Because of pride he had been able to buy those boots for less than a third of their nominal cost. And so he furnished himself with the first brand-new pair of shoes that he had had in ten years. Well oiled once a week, they might last as much as three years more, considering proper resoling.

All of this went through his mind as he touched the boots. He beat with them on the floor and shouted: “Anne! Hey, Anne!”

He did not hear a response at first. He beat again on the floor: “Anne! Anne! The devil, girl... ain’t you got ears?”

It floated up to him faintly and sweetly from downstairs: “Yes, Uncle Anthony.”

That staggered him. For it was very odd indeed that she should be up at this time in the morning. She must have been sick. That was it. She had got up sick. In fact, at dinner the day before she had complained that the beef they ate was not fresh. He shrugged his shoulders. If animals can eat and prefer to eat tainted flesh, why should not humans, also, except for certain foolish prejudices? Besides, it cost half as much as the ordinary red steaks.

Prejudice, prejudice ruled the world. Prejudice made men believe that they must have lights whatever they did. That was another folly. For instance, yonder on his table stood a lamp well filled with oil, with close-trimmed wick. He could, if he wished, scratch a match and light that lamp. But why waste a match and burn up the good oil when there was no need? He knew the place of every article in the room. He found his way about on this morning without a single mistake except that he miscalculated the position of the table, which he had moved the evening before. As a result, he stumbled and barked his shins, but that was a small catastrophe.

He went on with his dressing; since the weather was cold, he put on a pair of corduroy trousers, which he located readily enough in the dark of his closet by the stiffness of the grease-filled cloth. He put on for a coat the old Mackinaw that the tramp had left at his house five years before. Another would have burned the thing in disgust. But Anthony Hazzard, with his own hands, cleaned it, and here it had been serving him as good as new for five seasons, except where the elbows had been worn through.

At length he was dressed. He opened his door and started down for the first floor of the house. He rarely moved through it without being struck with the thought that it was much too large for a family so small as himself and his niece. There were as many as six rooms in it. Whereas three or four, or even merely two, would have been ample. He would have been glad to sleep in the kitchen. Anne could have a couch in the parlor. There was only one thing to do with such an ample house as this one, and that was to take in roomers. But whenever he suggested that sensible scheme to Anne, she evinced the most irresistible repugnance for the idea. This, he told himself, was because she had been with him only three years. Another season or two, and she would be reduced to a perfect obedience.

He had passed below the upper floor. There he paused, struck with dismay. From the lower floor there rolled up to him a rich warmth that penetrated through the chill that was congealing his flesh. It was almost as though the house were on fire.

He hurried down and cast open the door to the front room. A magnificent sight met his eyes. First of all, the great, old-fashioned hearth was heaped with logs aflame. Enough good fuel was at that moment embraced in the conflagration to have cooked 500 dinners–of a reasonable size! The chill that had made his body shake was replaced by another that struck him to the very heart. Nor was this, alas, all of the damage. Here in the corner stood a young fir tree that, in time, might have grown into a valuable tree. But, cut down in its early prime, it was now planted in a deep box, a poor, dead, useless thing. It would never know another day of growth. From its dark green branches hung glistening showers of tinsel things that sparkled and shone in the blaze of the firelight. And every ornament must have cost something. A penny here, a penny there, and soon the dollar is spent. He moistened his dry lips and looked wildly about him. There was more, much more. Woven wreaths of evergreen, made in time that might have been used with the darning needle to such profit, hung at the windows, and over the door there was a veritable triumphal arch of greenery. At the base of the tree lay three packages.

And fully in front of the fire stood Anne, the worker of all these misdeeds. She looked, at that moment, almost like the girl who had been thrust upon him three years before, with rosy cheeks and shining eyes, the very picture of over-eating and idleness. Since that gloomy day, a change had been worked in her. She had grown leaner, more sober, and she shocked his ears less often with laughter. In truth, he had often been proud of his work with Anne. He had looked upon her, at the first, as a thorough-going outlay of money with no return, but in due time he had actually made her an economy. He no longer had to employ a cook for the harvest hands or the haying or the plowing crews. And clothes, which with all his care might have fallen to pieces, were renewed as through magic by her deft needles. To be sure, it meant food for two, but there were few other expenses since he had told her that she must make her own clothes. So, by the time she was twenty, he had produced instead of a bundle of uselessness, a thrifty, neat, hard-working girl who almost satisfied him.

But now it seemed that all the good work was undone. The dam was broken; the dammed waters of spend-thrift recklessness had burst through with an overwhelming violence!

Here she was crying gaily, like a sinner unaware of her sin: “Uncle Anthony, merry Christmas! Merry Christmas!” And she danced up to him and threw her arms around his neck and kissed him upon each weather-beaten cheek.

He was so startled, so taken off his feet, so bitterly humiliated and shamed by this revelation that he could not answer at once. Before he could speak the proper stinging word to recall her to herself, she had run to the tree and brought him the three packages.

“Santa Claus must have been here!” she cried to him. “And he left these things for you, Uncle Anthony.” She stood back, nodding, covered with smiles, and he opened the packages, one by one.

“Slippers?” he said. “Slippers? For what?”

“Why, when you sit by the fire on cold evenings, I suppose, Uncle Anthony. Santa Claus must have meant them for that.”

“When do I sit by the fire?” he asked grimly, and, eager to know the full extent of the damage, he opened the next package. “A sweater! Good heavens, Anne... what’s this for?”

“For biting cold mornings, like this one,” she answered with some of the joy leaving her voice.

He threw it in the corner of the room, then, remembering that the garment had been pure wool to the touch, he hastily gathered it up again and folded it with anxious hands. There was such a thing as returning articles, in this day of reckless storekeepers. There was such a thing as getting refunds of money. Heaven be praised!

He turned to the last of the three. It was smaller than the others. He had hopes, after all, that it might be less expensive. But when he opened it, he was staggered to find lying in his hand, in a neat leather case, a meerschaum pipe. Up to this point, he had managed to maintain a faint smile upon his lips, feeling that smiles, after all, are the proper order of the day for these festival occasions, such as Christmas. However, his spirit now quite failed him. He stared at the wretched pipe. He stared at the girl.

“My heavens,” he broke out at last. “I have two pipes already!”

He saw her wince beneath the blow. All the color and the joy was struck from her face on the instant.

“But one of them had a cracked bowl, Uncle Anthony. And the stem of the other one is so short now that you have to keep holding the bowl in your hand.”

He fumbled in his coat pocket and brought forth the second of these maligned pipes. In truth, it was an antique. He himself would never have been guilty of purchasing a brier. Cherry wood or even cheaper stuff was amply good enough for him. But this had been given to him by a rich rancher who, for a few months, had been a client of his to the tune of some thousands. That was many and many a year gone. Now that stout stem, having successively been tooth-worn and the new mouth pieces whittled in it, was so short that he could not venture to hold the pipe in his teeth without burning his nose. He had to keep the pipe in his hand. However, he did not mind that so much. Or, if there were objections to the inconvenience, he told himself that men who smoked cigars, for instance, kept the tobacco in their hands most of the time. However, looking down at this wreck of a pipe, he decided that there was not much of an argument that could be advanced against his niece. He fell back upon the coward’s chief reliance–sarcasm.

“Ah,” he said, shaking his head, “it’s not hard to find reasons for the spending of money, girl. That’s something that most folks can find mighty easy... particularly fools!”

“It was my own money, Uncle Anthony,” she said very faintly.

“Anne,” groaned Anthony Hazzard, “d’you think I’m grievin’ for the money these here cost? Lord, Lord, no! It ain’t that. It’s the terrible habit of waste that it shows settlin’ on you. It’s the terrible habit of extravagance. God forgive you for it. God forgive you for it. It ain’t an encouragement to me to leave no great big legacy to you. It’d all be spent on fancy wool sweaters... not cotton, mind you, but real wool, fit for a millionaire or for a king.”

She was too stricken to answer his spirit, but from her numb lips came some sort of reply as he glowered at her. “But, Uncle Anthony, aren’t you really a millionaire?”

Suppose a blind old man beset with assailants young and strong; he shrinks into a corner; he fumbles about him and clutches a chance-found stick; he strikes out without aim–and fells the leader of the enemy senseless at his feet and puts the others to flight. So it was with the girl. She had not even tried to strike, and yet she found that she had paralyzed all the faculties of Uncle Anthony. He could only gape at her for a time, looking immensely old and very cadaverously wan.

He muttered at last: “Who might’ve been fillin’ your head full of nonsense like that? Or are you jokin’ at me, Anne? A poor old miserable man like me? Millionaire? Why... why, Anne, it’s mighty funny. I’d ought to laugh at it, but I can’t. The beggarly poor savin’s of my life of labor... the little mite that I’ve scraped up together...” Here his voice changed and grew almost to a scream: “Anne, Anne, if you go spreadin’ talk like this around, you’ll be bringin’ robbers on us that’ll kill me for the sake of my money! Yes, yes, you’re bringin’ murder and robbery into this house. I curse the day that ever brung you into it!”