University of Virginia Library

THE LITTLE MIGGSES' CHRISTMAS.

THIS is rather late for a Christmas story; which is one reason why we write it. The names are fictitious, of course. However much we may desire to cut and slash our fellow-men, and bruise their hearts, and wrench their feelings, we succeed in overcoming it now, because of this glad holiday week; and with the influence of peace on earth, and good-will toward men, we call him Miggs, and call them Miggs. So their name is Miggs, and they live on Nelson Street.

Nelson Street! What a world of pictures the very name calls up to us! We close our eyes, and the quaint avenue appears before us. We see two long lines of houses, in all conceivable colors for houses, with all kinds of fences in front of them. And from the doors of these houses come broken-legged men, and bandaged men, and bad men; and from the windows peer women,—comical women, serious women, grotesque women, homely

women, women with brooms, and women with herbs, and women with advice; but all of them, however they may differ in appearance, united in screaming after the men. And down the street fly hens, followed by coal clinkers; and dogs dragging tinware after them; and half-crazed cows swinging both hind-legs in the air (as cows do when excited); and cats with backs like the rainbow, spitting and yowling, and distressing themselves.

The house of the Miggses is a brown building, void of shutters or blinds. It is one of several brown buildings, equally bereft, on that street. It is protected at the front with a slat fence, where the slats are not gone; and the yard at the front and sides is strewn with a little of such refuse matter as is customary to a tenement-yard. One would think the Miggses had taken a coal-mine for debt, from the many bits of wood scattered over the premises, and fast losing their individuality in the mud.

The Miggses occupied the first floor, which gave them a front-room (which was also a sitting and dining room, and kitchen), two bed-rooms, and a pantry. The front-room was the family room. Here were a greasy stove and mantle ornaments, a dining-table, a red chest, several odd chairs which looked as if time could never quite obliterate their animosity toward each other, a chromo of angels, and a startling novelty in the shape of a steel

engraving of the Declaration of Independence. There were other things of minor importance in the room; but these we have enumerated strike the observer most prominently. It is now five o'clock the evening before Christmas. Mrs. Miggs, sitting in a rocker, and looking absently at her foot is holding the youngest Miggs, whose head is buried in her bosom. The two boy Miggs, hand in hand, are on the street, staring with all their might at the hurrying people, and anon pausing before a well-filled and brightly-lighted window, and devouring the sight. When we find them, they are in front of the leading toy and confectionery store. Their hands do not now hold each, other, but are pressed on their breasts, as if they would keep down a cry that could not otherwise be suppressed. They were common enough children. Robbie, the elder, a boy of eight years, had a white face, with big watery blue eyes. Jakey, the younger, aged seven, had a white face, with big watery blue eyes. Both of them had light, tawny hair. Here all semblance ceased.

Robbie wore a soft wool hat with a broken brim. Jakey's head was surmounted with a soldier's cap, with a formidable forepiece; and, because of the prominence of this ornament, Jakey was obliged to crowd the cap down on the back of his head, or suffer a complete eclipse. Robbie wore a gray jacket with black patches; and was further attired

with a dingy yellow comforter coiled about his neck like an overfed boa-constrictor, and a pair of his mother's cast-off gaiters securely fastened to his feet. Jakey's jacket was a rusty plaid without any patches, but contemplating them; and his pants—very little pants they were in the legs, but quite obese in the seat—were gray, and had been ingeniously darned at the knees with black thread. Jakey's little feet were incased in low shoes with copper tips,—the only jewelry the child wore,—and about his neck was a flaming red comforter, whose many folds threatened to smother him.

The store-window was very brilliant. There were candies of every conceivable design, stored in vases, piled on plates, and heaped in pyramids. There were suspended candy canes, and dangling baskets of sugar fruit, and festoons of cornucopias. And while they stood there, and stared through the window, and lost their breath and caught it, and then lost it again, there was a sudden invasion of shouts and steps; and a troop of wild boys, hooting and struggling, crowded up to the window, and fell to work establishing their claims by such brief and hurried notices as, "I dubs this pile!" "I dubs the cornucopias!" "I dubs the gum-drops!" &c. One of the gaiters was very rudely stepped upon; and the military cap was knocked down in front to such a degree, that the stiff forepiece threatened to cut off the copper toes. The two Miggses immediately

kicked themselves free of the crowd, and stopped on the outskirts to look at the struggling mass. Then bells and whistles sounded the hour of six; and the two children clasped hands once more, and hurried home, one of them smarting from the pressure on his foot, and the other from the vulgar familiarity which had been taken with his cap. Supper was ready on their arrival; but they had to wait until the coming of their father. The room had changed wonderfully under the influence of the lamp and the singing kettle. The two little boys, after taking the precaution to make a careful survey of the table, unwrapped themselves from their superfluous clothing, which they deposited on the floor, and, until the arrival of their father, treated their mother to snatches of information of what they had seen, and contradicted each other, and exchanged glances of mystery, and wondered what they were going to get for Christmas. The whole of which they interspersed with such observations as, "Oh, my!" "I guess not!" "Oh, no!" and the like, being calculated to express, although in a very feeble manner, the great wonders they had seen, and the great gratification they now experienced in reviewing them. On the arrival of senior Miggs a great uproar ensued, coming mainly from the two junior Miggses; although the very diminutive Miggs in arms gave substantial aid by partly swallowing a button, and recovering it again.

The two Miggs boys, who had been up street for the express although concealed purpose of catching a glimpse of Santa Claus, now fell to bombarding their father about him, and were gratified to learn that he had seen him, and, furthermore, had been able, at an infinite cost of effort, to glean the gratifying information that he was coming, and that (which was much more to the point) he had things in his bag for Robbie and Jakey.

"And Georgy?" shouted Robbie, indicating that party by pinching his fat nose.

"And Georgy, too," said Mr. Miggs, nodding to the baby.

"Good!" shrieked Robbie.

"Ki yi!" responded Jakey.

And the two little boys, having now finished their supper, got down back of the stove, and speedily fell into an animated discussion as to what they would have, and as to what they should do with it, and which would have the most, and which would keep it the longest; and pretty soon they suddenly appeared to view with their hands in each other's hair, and immediately rolled under the table in a desperate endeavor to kick off each other's legs.

The fond but somewhat astonished father at once swooped down on them, and, by helping himself to their hair, soon imparted to them something of his own feelings of peace and good-will, and for

the next twenty minutes kept himself between them, and thus secured quiet.

With a view to conforming themselves to this sudden and rather unexpected change, the young men slyly shook their fists at each other, and, when their father was very busily engaged in his conversation, found time to whisper under his chair the plans they entertained for each other's future. By degrees, they finally worked together again; but forgetting their past difficulty in the shadowing of the holiday, and by the close approach of that hour when the tread of many feet would sound on the roof, they nestled closely together by the side of the stove, and kept their large watery eyes on their father.

Thus they sat until both parents grew nervous, and consulted the clock as frequently as if it were an oracle, and the only oracle within sixty miles. Sundry observations on the remarkable safety of going to bed early had no other effect upon the two little Miggses than to make their eyes snap. Finally it was suggested, as something entirely original, that Santa Claus would never think of putting things in the stockings of boys who did not go to bed at nine o'clock. There was a decided evidence of uneasiness back of the stove. "Santa Claus," Mr. Miggs went on to explain to Mrs, Miggs, "knew a good boy when he saw him; and he knew the very first and last thing a good boy

would persist in doing would be in going to bed early." (The uneasiness back of the stove visibly increased.) "However," continued Mr. Miggs, still addressing himself to Mrs. Miggs, "there are boys who think they are smart, and will find out what Santa Claus is going to put in their stockings before he has taken it out of his bag; but boys like that are not so keen as they think, which they find to their cost when morning comes, and there is nothing whatever in their stockings." Mr. Miggs was very much depressed by the disappointment of the smart boys, and had all he could do to restrain a tear; but the sudden movement of the two little Miggses to bed diverted his mind.

Once in bed, they lay conversing in whispers, and staring apprehensively at the ray of light coming through the door. The all-absorbing topic of their thoughts being the weird Dutchman and his countless treasures, they compared notes of their conception of his character, and, having exhausted the fertility of their brain in giving him shape and qualities, finally vowed to stay awake, and verify their own predictions with their own eyes. And after that they fell asleep.

And, while they slept, the wonderful Santa Claus took down the little patched stockings, and put candies in them, and molasses cookies, and jumping-jacks, and little primers, and peanuts, and sugar kisses, and handled the little stockings as

tenderly as if they were the richest the market afforded, and their contents the grandest the world could contribute. Angels, unless they were the spirits of grocers and clothiers troubled by the memory of bad accounts, must have smiled on this Santa Claus and his gracious work of love.

And, when the first flush of Christmas Day lighted up the world, the little Miggs boys were out of bed, and on the floor of the big room, feeling their way to the mantle with the most affectionate regard for the chairs and stoves in the way.

And when their little fingers closed spasmodically on the stockings, and learned their plumpness by the sense of feeling, the glad shout that went up made the old timbers resound with a thousand echoes. They flew to the bedside of their parents, and filled the ears of those guardians with the horrid din of proud exultation.

Then the lamp was lighted, because there could be no more sleep in that house, and the contents of the stockings were carefully poured out on the table; and at every advent of a package there was another scream by the party producing it, set off by a look of quick apprehension by the party observing it.

Then there was a great time getting their pa and ma to taste the candy, and play the monkey-jacks; and, when they had done this to the satisfaction of all, the little Miggses tore out of the house in

search of the other boys in the neighborhood, to see what they got, and to compare trophies.

Some of the boys thus sought had, we regret to say, a better variety and superior toys to what the Miggses got; but then there were other boys who fared worse, and so the matter was balanced.

But there is a sort of feeling, bred from the occasion itself, we think, which pervades the atmosphere, mellowing the hearts of all children, and making them, unless they are brothers, perfectly contented with what they have received, as compared with what others, more favored, have received.

The little Miggses did not see any thing among the neighbors that made their possessions appear any the less comforting. They chewed their candy, and cracked their peanuts, and jumped their jacks, and thumbed their primers, in a mild insanity. And, when they were tired of this, they went out into the yard, and slid on some green-and-white ice made by suds. And, when their own eatables were dissolved, they generously turned in of one accord, and helped the baby-brother to eat his.

And when these, too, were gone, and the Christmas-dinner eaten, they wrapped their threadbare garments about their little forms, and stoned the neighboring hens until dark.