A Chicago Christmas Legend.

Gabriel Barton was an editor. After years of patient toil and continuous self-denial he had succeeded in amassing as large a competency of boys and girls as you could expect to find in a monogamic community.

Yet Gabriel was not content. Instead of being thankful for the blessings with which his family-board was surrounded three times a day, he pined for other boons which he did not possess. He yearned ever for gold,—that insidious canker that gnaws the soul beyond reparation, and leaves a dark, indelible stain on the proudest escutcheons.

“Gold—gold! I must have gold!” he cried incessantly.

His strange demeanor was the occasion of grievous perplexity to his wife; for Estelle Barton was a simple, unaffected woman, ill acquainted with the selfish nature and ways of the cold world.

“But why, dear husband,” she asked, “why clamor for the unattainable? Be satisfied with what we have; ’tis humble, I know; but so long as our nine children are in good health, and so long as the water-tax is not due, we surely shall not perish of thirst. Would this sordid gold you crave deepen the color in our darlings’ cheeks, or better the quality of the nourishment we drink? Prithee, be content.”

139But, alas! Estelle Barton’s wise words weighed naught with Gabriel. Ceaselessly he yearned for debasing lucre; and his morbid appetite made him thin and pale, and brought a faltering into his gait, and a tremulousness into his voice.

One bitter cold Christmas Eve little Eugenia Barton, the nine-year-old daughter and the senior child of the family, asked pleadingly, “Papa, do you not know what day to-morrow is?”

Gazing into the depths of the child’s innocent blue eyes, Mr. Barton said, “How came you to know, child, that my note fell due to-morrow?”

“Nay, papa,” interposed Eugenia, “I did not know it. But surely you cannot have forgotten! To-morrow is Christmas—Christmas, papa! the gladdest, merriest day in all the year!”

A far-off look came into Mr. Barton’s lack-lustre eyes.

“Well?” he uttered inquiringly.

“Tell me, papa,” cried Eugenia, “tell me, will Santa Claus come this year?”

“I think I can safely say, that, unless he intends to break his record, he will not,” replied Mr. Barton promptly.

“Alas!” sighed Eugenia; and with this she hung her beautiful golden head.

Mr. Barton regretted that he had cast a gloom over the child’s hopes. He sought to explain his seeming harshness.

“Why should Santa Claus come?” he asked 140bitterly. “Haven’t the neighbors got through lending us what we need? Where, in all this great but heartless city, can we expect to borrow any thing to hang up?”

“True,” said Eugenia: “I had not thought of that. Forgive me, dear papa, if, in my puerile heedlessness, I have caused you pain!”

That night Eugenia sobbed herself to sleep on the sofa with a volume of old files tucked around her shivering form. How long she slept, we will not presume to say. But the golden sunbeams of the early Christmas morn were dancing through the window-frames, and floating o’er the hardwood floor, when she awoke. A man stood before her,—a man clad in habiliments of fur. Eugenia uttered a cry of joy.

“Santa Claus!” she cried.

The man smiled pleasantly with that part of his personality that was exposed to the rigorous temperature of the editor’s home.

“O Santa Claus!” said Eugenia, “I knew you would come: we’ve been waiting for you year after year until the rest had given you up, but I—I knew you would come!”

Again the exposed surface of the fur-clad stranger wrinkled into a smile.

“Thank you for coming,” continued Eugenia. “I knew that my faith in you would be rewarded. So tell me, dear Santa Claus, what gifts—what wealth of beauteous things—have you 141brought to pour out into our grateful laps at last?”

The strange, fur-clad figure stood still a moment, as if dazed; then drew a bit of coin from the mysterious depths of his shaggy robe, and tossed it to the anxious child.

“There’s a nickel for you, little un,” he said; and his tones betokened a kindly heart. “But, bless you, I’m not Santa Claus: I’m the constable!”