Amiga Plus 2000 #4/Amiga Plus CD - 2000 - No. 4.iso/Tools/Text/Misc/TextToBraille/TestFiles/Test2.txt

Text File | 1991-11-23 | 13.0 KB | 285 lines

A MISERABLE, MERRY CHRISTMAS

From the Autobiography of Lincoln Steffens
by Joseph Lincoln Steffens.

    My father's business seems to have been one of slow but
steady growth.  He and his local partner, Llewelen
Tozer, had no vices.  They were devoted to their
families and to "the store," which grew with the town, which,
in turn, grew and changed with the State from a gambling,
mining, and ranching community to one of farming, fruit-
raising, and building.  Immigration poured in, not
gold-seekers now, but farmers, business men and home-
builders, who settled, planted, reaped, and traded
in the natural riches of the State, which prospered
greatly, "making" the people who will tell you that they "made
the State."

    As the store made money and I was getting through the
primary school, my father bought a lot uptown, at
Sixteenth and K streets, and built us a "big"
house.  It was off the line of the city's growth, but it was
near a new grammar school for me and my sisters who
were coming along fast after me.  This interested the family, not
me.  They were always talking about school; they had not had
much of it themselves, and they thought they had missed something.
My father used to write speeches, my mother verses, and
their theory seems to have been that they had talents which a
school would have brought to flower.  They agreed, therefore, that
their children's gifts should have all the schooling there was.
My view, then, was that I had had a good deal of it
already, and I was not interested at all.  It interfered with
my own business, with my own education.

    And indeed I remember very little of the primary school.
I learned to read, write, spell, and count, and
reading was all right.  I had a practical use for
books, which I searched for ideas and parts to play with,
characters to be, lives to live.  The primary school was
probably a good one, but I cannot remember learning
anything except to read aloud "perfectly" from a teacher
whom I adored and who was fond of me.  She used
to embrace me before the whole class and she favored me
openly to the scandal of the other pupils who called me
"teachers's pet."  Their scorn did not trouble me; I
saw and I said that they envied me.  I paid for her favor,
however.  When she married I had queer, un-
happy feelings of resentment; I didn't want
to meet her husband, and when I had to I wouldn't
speak to him.  He laughed, and she kissed me--hap-
pily for her, to me offensively.  I never would see her
again.  Through with her, I fell in love immediately with Miss
Kay, another grown young woman who wore glasses
and had a fine, clear skin.  I did not know her, I
only saw her in the street, but once I followed
her, found out where she lived, and used to pass her house,
hoping to see her, and yet choking with embarrassment if
I did.  This fascination lasted for years; it was still a
sort of superrromance to me when later I was "going with"
another girl nearer my own age.

    What interested me in our new neighborhood was not
the school, nor the room I was to have in the house all
to myself, but the stable which was built back of the house.  My
father let me direct the making of a stall, a little
smaller than the other stalls, for my pony, and I
prayed and hoped and my sister Lou believed that that meant
that I would get the pony, perhaps for Christmas.  I
pointed out to her that there were three other stalls and no
horses at all.  This I said in order that she should
answer it.  She could not.  My father, sounded, said that some
day we might have horses and a cow; meanwhile a stable
added to the value of a house.  "Some day" is a pain
to a boy who lives in and knows only "Now".  My good
little sisters, to comfort me, remarked that Christmas was coming,
but Christmas was always coming and grown-ups were always talking
about it, asking you what you wanted and then giving you what
they wanted you to have.  Though everybody knew what I
wanted, I told them all again.  My mother knew that I
told God, too, every night.  I wanted a pony, and
to make sure that they understood, I declared that I wanted
nothing else.

    "Nothing but a pony?" my father asked.
    "Nothing." I said.
    "Not even a pair of high boots?"
    That was hard.  I did want boots, but I stuck
to the pony.  "No, not even boots."
    "Nor candy?  There ought to be something to fill your
stocking with, and Santa Claus can't put a pony
into a stocking."
    That was true, and he couldn't lead a pony down the
chimney either.  But no.  "All I want is
a pony," I said.  "If I can't have a pony, give
me nothing, nothing."

    Now I had been looking myself for the pony I want-
ed, going to sales stables, inquiring of horsemen, and I
had seen several that would do.  My father let me "try"
them.  I tried so many ponies that I was learning fast
to sit a horse.  I chose several, but my father always
found some fault with them.  I was in despair.  When
Christmas was at hand I had given up all hope of a
pony, and on Christmas Eve I hung up my
stocking along with my sisters', of whom, by the way, I
now had three.  I haven't mentioned them or their coming
because, you understand, they were girls, and girls, young girls,
counted for nothing in my manly life.  They did not mind
me either; they were so happy that Christmas Eve that I
caught some of their merriment.  I speculated on what
I'd get; I hung up the biggest stocking I had,
and we all went reluctantly to bed to wait till
morning.  Not to sleep; not right away.  We were told that
we must not only sleep promptly, we must not wake
up till seven-thirty the next morning--or if we
did, we must not go to the fireplace for our Christmas.
Impossible.

    We did sleep that night, but we woke up at
six A.M.  We lay in our beds and debated through the
open doors whether to obey till, say, half-past
six.  Then we bolted.  I don't know who started it,
but there was a rush.  We all disobeyed; we raced to diso-
bey and get first to the fireplace in the front room
downstairs.  And there they were, the gifts, all sorts
of wonderful things, mixed-up piles of presents;
only, as I disentangled the mess, I saw that my
stocking was empty; it hung limp; not a thing in it; and
under and around it--nothing.  My sisters had knelt down,
each by her pile of gifts; they were squealing with de-
light, till they looked up and saw me standing there in
my nightgown with nothing.  They left their piles to come
to me and look with me at my empty place.  Nothing.
They felt my stocking: nothing.

    I don't remember whether I cried at that moment,
but my sisters did.  They ran with me back to my bed,
and there we all cried till I became indignant.
That helped some.  I got up, dressed, and driving my
sisters away, I went alone out into the yard,
down to the stable, and there, all by myself, I wept.  My
mother came out to me by and by; she found me in my
pony stall, sobbing on the floor and she tried to comfort
me.  But I heard my father outside; he had come part
way with her, and she was having some sort of angry
quarrel with him.  She tried to comfort me; besought me to come
to breakfast.  I could not; I wanted no comfort and no
breakfast.  She left me and went on into the house with
sharp words for my father.

    I don't know what kind of a breakfast the family
had.  My sisters said it was "awful".  They were ashamed
to enjoy their own toys.  They came to me, and I was
rude.  I ran away from them.  I went around to the
front of the house, sat down on the steps, and, the
crying over, I ached.  I was wronged, I was hurt--
I can feel now what I felt then, and I am sure
that if one could see the wounds upon our hearts, there would
be found still upon mine a scar from that terrible Christmas
morning.  And my father, the practical joker, he must have
been hurt, too, a little.  I saw him looking out of the
window.  He was watching me or something for an hour or
two, drawing back the curtain never so little lest I
catch him, but I saw his face, and I think I can
see now the anxiety upon it, the worried impatience.

    After--I don't know how long--surely an hour
or two--I was brought to the climax of my agony by the
sight of a man riding a pony down the street, a
pony and a brand-new saddle; the most beautiful saddle
I ever saw, and it was a boy's saddle; the man's
feet were not in the stirrups; his legs were too long.
The outfit was perfect; it was the realization of all my
dreams, the answer to all my prayers.  A fine new
bridle, with a light curb bit.  And the pony!  As he
drew near, I saw that the pony was really a small
horse, what we called an Indian pony, a bay,
with black mane and tail, and one white foot and a
white star on his forehead.  For such a horse as that I
would have given, I could have forgiven, anything.

    But the man, a disheveled fellow with a blackened
eye and a fresh-cut face, came along, reading the
numbers on the houses, and, as my hopes--my
impossible hopes--rose, he looked at our door
and passed by, he and the pony, and the saddle, and the
bridle.  Too much.  I fell upon the steps,
and having wept before, broke down now into such a flood of
tears that I was a floating wreck when I heard a
voice.

    "Say, kid" it said, "do you know a boy named
Lennie Steffens?"
    I looked up.  It was the man on the pony, back
again, at our horse block.
    "Yes," I spluttered through my tears.  "That's
me."
    "Well," he said, "then this is your horse.  I've
been looking all over for you and your house.  Why don't
you put your number where it can be seen?"
    "Get down," I said, running out to him.

    He went on saying something about "ought to have got here at
seven o'clock; told me to bring the nag here and tie him
to your post and leave him for you.  But, hell, I got
into a drunk--and a fight--and a hospital,and--"
    "Get down," I said.

    He got down, and he boosted me up to the saddle.
He offered to fit the stirrups to me, but I didn't
want him to.  I wanted to ride.

    "What's the matter with you?" he said, angrily.
"What you crying for?  Don't you like the horse?  He's
a dandy, this horse.  I know him of old.  He's fine
at cattle; he'll drive 'em alone."

    I hardly heard, I could scarcely wait, but he
persisted.  He adjusted the stirrups, and then, finally,
off I rode, slowly, at a walk, so happy, so
thrilled, that I did not know what I was doing.  I did
not look back at the house or the man.  I rode off
up the street, taking note of everything--of the reins, of the
pony's long mane, of the carved leather saddle.  I had
never seen anything so beautiful.  And mine!  I was going
to ride up past Miss Kay's house.  But I
noticed on the horn of the saddle some stains like rain-
drops, so I turned and trotted home, not to the house
but to the stable.  There was the family, father, mother, sisters,
all working for me, all happy.  They had been putting
in place the tools of my new business: blankets,
currycomb, brush, pitch/fork--everything, and there was hay
in the loft.

    "What did you come back so soon for?" somebody
asked.  "Why didn't you go on riding?"

    I pointed to the stains.  "I wasn't going to get
my new saddle rained on," I said.  And my
father laughed.  "It isn't raining," he said, "Those are
not raindrops."

    "They are tears," my mother gasped, and she gave my
father a look which sent him off to the house.  Worse still,
my mother offered to wipe away the tears still running out of
my eyes.  I gave her such a look as she had given
him, and she went off after my father, drying her own tears.
My sisters remained and we all unsaddled the pony,
put on his halter, led him to his stall, tied and fed
him.  It began really to rain; so all the rest of that
memorable day we curried and combed that pony.  The
girls plaited his mane, forelock, and tail, while
I pitch/forked hay to him and curried and brushed, cur-
ried and brushed.  For a change we brought him out to drink;
we led him up and down, blanketed like a race-
horse; we took turns at that.  But the best, the
most inexhaustible fun, was to clean him.  When we went
reluctantly to our midday Christmas dinner, we
all smelt of horse, and my sisters had to wash their
faces and hands.  I was asked to, but I wouldn't,
till my mother bade me look in the mirror.  Then
I washed up--quick.  My face was caked with the muddy
lines of tears that had coursed over my cheeks to my
mouth.  Having washed away that shame, I ate my
dinner, and as I ate I grew hungrier and hun-
grier.  It was my first meal that day, and as I filled
up on the turkey and the stuffing, the cranberries and the
pies, the fruit and the nuts--as I swelled, I could
laugh.  My mother said I still choked and sobbed now and then,
but I laughed, too; I saw and enjoyed my sisters'
presents till--I had to go out and attend to my pony,
who was there, really and truly there, the promise, the
beginning, of a happy double life.  And--I went and
looked to make sure--there was the saddle, too, and the
bridle.

    But that Christmas, which my father had planned so care-
fully, was it the best or the worst I ever knew?
He often asked that; I never could answer as a
boy.  I think now that it was both.  It covered the whole
distance from broken-hearted misery to bursting happiness--
too fast.  A grown-up could hardly have stood it.

    [The entire autobiography is in braille.]