University of Virginia Library

4. CHAPTER IV.
A CHRISTMAS GIFT.

The pioneer sunbeam of next Christmas morning
rattled over the Dunderbunk hills, flashed into
Richard Wade's eyes, waked him, and was off,
ricochetting across the black ice of the river.

Wade jumped up, electrified and jubilant. He
had gone to bed feeling quite too despondent for
so healthy a fellow. Christmas Eve, the time of
family meetings, reminded him how lonely he was.
He had not a relative in the world, except two
little nieces, — one as tall as his knee, the other
almost up to his waist; and them he had safely
bestowed in a nook of New England, to gain wit
and virtues as they gained inches.

“I have had a stern and lonely life,” thought
Wade, as he blew out his candle last night, “and
what has it profited me?”

Perhaps the pioneer sunbeam answered this question
with a truism, not always as applicable as in
this case, — “A brave, able, self-respecting manhood
is fair profit for any man's first thirty years
of life.”

But, answered or not, the question troubled
Wade no more. He shot out of bed in tip-top
spirits; shouted “Merry Christmas!” at the rising
disk of the sun; looked over the black ice; thrilled
with the thought of a long holiday for skating;

and proceeded to dress in a knowing suit of rough
clothes, singing, “Ah, non giunge!” as he slid into
them.

Presently, glancing from his south window, he
observed several matinal smokes rising from the
chimneys of a country-house a mile away, on a
slope fronting the river.

“Peter Skerrett must be back from Europe at
last,” he thought. “I hope he is as fine a fellow
as he was ten years ago. I hope marriage has not
made him a muff, and wealth a weakling.”

Wade went down to breakfast with an heroic appetite.
His “Merry Christmas” to Mrs. Purtett
was followed up by a ravished kiss and the gift of
a silver butter-knife. The good widow did not
know which to be most charmed with. The butter-knife
was genuine, shining, solid silver, with her
initials, M. B. P., Martha Bilsby Purtett, given in
luxuriant flourishes; but then the kiss had such a
fine twang, such an exhilarating titillation! The
late Perry's kisses, from first to last, had wanted
point. They were, as the Spanish proverb would
put it, unsavory as unsalted eggs, for want of a
moustache. The widow now perceived, with mild
regret, how much she had missed when she married
“a man all shaven and shorn.” Her cheek, still
fair, though forty, flushed with novel delight, and
she appreciated her lodger more than ever.

Wade's salutation to Belle Purtett was more distant.
There must be a little friendly reserve between
a handsome young man and a pretty young

woman several grades lower in the social scale, living
in the same house. They were on the most
cordial terms, however; and her gift — of course
embroidered slippers — and his to her — of course
“The Illustrated Poets,” in Turkey morocco —
were exchanged with tender good-will on both
sides.

“We shall meet on the ice, Miss Belle,” said
Wade. “It is a day of a thousand for skating.”

“Mr. Ringdove says you are a famous skater,”
Belle rejoined. “He saw you on the river yesterday
evening.”

“Yes; Tarbox and I were practising to exhibit
to-day; but I could not do much with my dull old
skates.”

Wade breakfasted deliberately, as a holiday
morning allowed, and then walked down to the
Foundry. There would be no work done to-day,
except by a small gang keeping up the fires. The
Superintendent wished only to give his First Semi-Annual
Report an hour's polishing, before he joined
all Dunderbunk on the ice.

It was a halcyon day, worthy of its motto,
“Peace on earth, good-will to men.” The air was
electric, the sun overflowing with jolly shine, the
river smooth and sheeny from the hither bank to
the snowy mountains opposite.

“I wish I were Rembrandt, to paint this grand
shadowy interior,” thought Wade, as he entered
the silent, deserted Foundry. “With the gleam
of the snow in my eyes, it looks deliciously warm

and chiaroscuro. When the men are here and `fervet
opus,' — the pot boils, — I cannot stop to see
the picturesque.”

He opened his office, took his Report and began
to complete it with,s,;s, and.s in the right
places.

All at once the bell of the Works rang out loud
and clear. Presently the Superintendent became
aware of a tramp and a bustle in the building.
By and by came a tap at the office-door.

“Come in,” said Wade, and, enter young Perry
Purtett.

Perry was a boy of fifteen, with hair the color of
fresh sawdust, white eyebrows, and an uncommonly
wide-awake look. Ringdove, his father's successor,
could never teach Perry the smirk, the grace,
and the seductiveness of the counter, so the boy
had found his place in the finishing-shop of the
Foundry.

“Some of the hands would like to see you for
half a jiff, Mr. Wade,” said he. “Will you come
along, if you please?”

There was a good deal of easy swagger about
Perry, as there is always in boys and men whose
business is to watch the lunging of steam-engines.
Wade followed him. Perry led the way with a
jaunty air that said, —

“Room here! Out of the way, you lubberly
bits of cast-iron! Be careful, now, you big derricks,
or I 'll walk right over you! Room now for
Me and My suite!”

This pompous usher conducted the Superintendent
to the very spot in the main room of the Works
where, six months before, the Inaugural had been
pronounced and the first Veto spoken and enacted.

And there, as six months before, stood the Hands
awaiting their Head. But the aprons, the red
shirts, and the grime of working-days were off, and
the whole were in holiday rig, — as black and
smooth and shiny from top to toe as the members
of a Congress of Undertakers.

Wade, following in the wake of Perry, took his
stand facing the rank, and waited to see what he
was summoned for. He had not long to wait.

To the front stepped Mr. William Tarbox, foreman
of the finishing-shop, no longer a bhoy, but an
erect, fine-looking fellow, with no nitrate in his
moustache, and his hat permanently out of mourning
for the late Mr. Poole.

“Gentlemen,” said Bill, “I move that this meeting
organize by appointing Mr. Smith Wheelwright
Chairman. As many as are in favor of this motion,
please to say, `Ay.'”

“Ay!” said the crowd, very loud and big.
And then every man looked at his neighbor, a little
abashed, as if he himself had made all the noise.

“This is a free country,” continues Bill. “Every
woter has a right to a fair shake. Contrary
minds, `No.'”

No contrary minds. The crowd uttered a great
silence. Every man looked at his neighbor, surprised
to find how well they agreed.

“Unanimous!” Tarbox pronounced. “No fractious
minorities here, to block the wheels of legislation!”

The crowd burst into a roar at this significant
remark, and, again abashed, dropped portcullis on
its laughter, cutting off the flanks and tail of the
sound.

“Mr. Purtett, will you please conduct the Chairman
to the Chair,” says Bill, very stately.

“Make way here!” cried Perry, with the manner
of a man seven feet high. “Step out now, Mr.
Chairman!”

He took a big, grizzled, docile-looking fellow
patronizingly by the arm, led him forward, and
chaired him on a large cylinder-head, in the rough,
just hatched out of its mould.

“Bang away with that, and sing out `Silence!'”
says the knowing boy, handing Wheelwright an
iron bolt, and taking his place beside him, as
prompter.

The docile Chairman obeyed. At his breaking
silence by hooting “Silence!” the audience had
another mighty bobtailed laugh.

“Say, `Will some honorable member state the
object of this meeting?'” whispered the prompter.

“Will some honorable mumbler state the subject
of this 'ere meetin'?” says Chair, a little bashful
and confused.

Bill Tarbox advanced, and, with a formal bow,
began, —

“Mr. Chairman —”

“Say, `Mr. Tarbox has the floor,'” piped Perry.

“Mr. Tarbox has the floor,” diapasoned the
Chair.

“Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen —” Bill began,
and stopped.

“Say, `Proceed, Sir!'” suggested Perry, which
the senior did, magnifying the boy's whisper a
dozen times.

Again Bill began and stopped.

“Boys,” said he, dropping grandiloquence,
“when I accepted the office of Orator of the
Day at our primary, and promised to bring forward
our Resolutions in honor of Mr. Wade with
my best speech, I did n't think I was going to
have such a head of steam on that the walves
would get stuck and the piston jammed and I
could n't say a word.

“But,” he continued, warming up, “when I
think of the Indian powwow we had in this very
spot six months ago, — and what a mean bloat I
was, going to the stub-tail dogs with my hat over
my eyes, — and what a hard lot we were all round,
livin' on nothing but argee whiskey, and rampin'
off on benders, instead of makin' good iron, — and
how the Works was flat broke, — and how Dunderbunk
was full of women crying over their husbands
and mothers ashamed of their sons, — boys, when
I think how things was, and see how they are, and
look at Mr. Wade standing there like a —”

Bill hesitated for a comparison.

“Like a thousand of brick,” Perry Purtett suggested,
sotto voce.

The Chairman took this as a hint to himself.

“Like a thousand of brick,” he said, with the
voice of a Stentor.

Here the audience roared and cheered, and the
Orator got a fresh start.

“When you came, Mr. Wade,” he resumed,
“we was about sick of putty-heads and sneaks
that did n't know enough or did n't dare to make
us stand round and bone in. You walked in, b'ilin'
over with grit. You took hold as if you belonged
here. You made things jump like a two-headed
tarrier. All we wanted was a live man, to say,
`Here, boys, all together now! You 've got your
stint, and I 've got mine. I 'm boss in this shop,
— but I can't do the first thing, unless every man
pulls his pound. Now, then, my hand is on the
throttle, grease the wheels, oil the walves, poke
the fires, hook on, and let 's yank her through with
a will!'”

At this figure the meeting showed a tendency to
cheer. “Silence!” Perry sternly suggested. “Silence!”
repeated the Chair.

“Then,” continued the Orator, “you was n't
one of the uneasy kind, always fussin' and cussin'
round. You was n't always spyin' to see we
did n't take home a cross-tail or a hundred-weight
of cast-iron in our pants' pockets, or go to swiggin'
hot metal out of the ladles on the sly.”

Here an enormous laugh requited Bill's joke.
Perry prompted, the Chair banged with his bolt
and cried, “Order!”

“Well, now, boys,” Tarbox went on, “what has
come of having one of the right sort to be boss?
Why, this. The Works go ahead, stiddy as the
North River. We work full time and full-handed.
We turn out stuff that no shop needs to be ashamed
of. Wages is on the nail. We have a good time
generally. How is that, boys, — Mr. Chairman
and Gentlemen?”

“That 's so!” from everybody.

“And there 's something better yet,” Bill resumed.
“Dunderbunk used to be full of crying
women. They 've stopped crying now.”

Here the whole assemblage, Chairman and all,
burst into an irrepressible cheer.

“But I 'm making my speech as long as a lightning-rod,”
said the speaker. “I 'll put on the
brakes, short. I guess Mr. Wade understands
pretty well, now, how we feel; and if he don't,
here it all is in shape, in this document, with
`Whereas' at the top and `Resolved' entered
along down in five places. Mr. Purtett, will you
hand the Resolutions to the Superintendent?”

Perry advanced and did his office loftily, much
to the amusement of Wade and the workmen.

“Now,” Bill resumed, “we wanted, besides, to
make you a little gift, Mr. Wade, to remember the
day by. So we got up a subscription, and every
man put in his dime. Here 's the present, — hand
'em over, Perry!

“There, Sir, is The Best Pair of Skates to be
had in York City, made for work, and no nonsense

about 'em. We Dunderbunk boys give 'em to
you, one for all, and hope you 'll like 'em and beat
the world skating, as you do in all the things
we 've knowed you try.

“Now, boys,” Bill perorated, “before I retire
to the shades of private life, I motion we give
Three Cheers — regular Toplifters — for Richard
Wade!”

“Hurrah! Wade and Good Government!”
“Hurrah! Wade and Prosperity!” “Hurrah!
Wade and the Women's Tears Dry!”

Cheers like the shout of Achilles! Wielding
sledges is good for the bellows, it appears. Toplifters!
Why, the smoky black rafters overhead
had to tug hard to hold the roof on. Hurrah!
From every corner of the vast building came back
rattling echoes. The Works, the machinery, the
furnaces, the stuff, all had their voice to add to the
verdict.

Magnificent music! and our Anglo-Saxon is the
only race in the world civilized enough to join in
singing it. We are the only hurrahing people, —
the only brood hatched in a “Hurrah's nest.”

Silence restored, the Chairman, prompted by
Perry, said, “Gentlemen, Mr. Wade has the floor
for a few remarks.”

Of course Wade had to speak, and did. He
would not have been an American in America
else. But his heart was too full to say more than
a few hearty and earnest words of good feeling.

“Now, men,” he closed, “I want to get away

on the river and see if my skates will go as they
look; so I 'll end by proposing three cheers for
Smith Wheelwright, our Chairman, three for our
Orator, Tarbox, three for Old Dunderbunk, —
Works, Men, Women, and Children; and one big
cheer for Old Father Iron, as rousing a cheer as
ever was roared.”

So they gave their three times three with enormous
enthusiasm. The roof shook, the furnaces
rattled, Perry Purtett banged with the Chairman's
hammer, the great echoes thundered through the
Foundry.

And when they ended with one gigantic cheer
for IRON, tough and true, the weapon, the tool,
and the engine of all civilization, — it seemed as
if the uproar would never cease until Father Iron
himself heard the call in his smithy away under
the magnetic pole, and came clanking up, to return
thanks in person.