The Idiot at Home Page 11

  X

  AS TO SANTA CLAUS

  "I am very glad I didn't take Tommy and Mollie to church with me thismorning," said Mrs. Idiot, on her return from service. "It would havebroken their hearts to have heard the sermon. I don't know what getsinto Dr. Preachly sometimes. He gave us a blast about Santa Claus."

  "A blast about Santa Claus, eh!" said the Idiot. "And how did he blastthe good old saint?"

  "He said he was a lie," rejoined Mrs. Idiot, indignantly, "and that itwas the duty of every Christian in the land to see that the lie wasexposed."

  "Great heavens!" cried the Idiot, in astonishment. "Doesn't Dr. Preachlybelieve in Santa Claus? Poor old Preachly! How much he has lost! Did hesay anything about Hop o' My Thumb and Cinderella?"

  "No, of course not. Why should he?" returned Mrs. Idiot.

  "Oh, because; I suppose that a man who doesn't believe in Santa Claus isa skeptic on the subject of Hop o' My Thumb, and Rumpelstiltzken, andCinderella, and Jack the Giant-Killer, and all the rest of that noblearmy of childhood friends," explained the Idiot.

  "He didn't mention them," said Mrs. Idiot. "He--"

  "He's going to preach a series of sermons on lies, I presume," said theIdiot. "He's tackled Santa Claus first, as being the most seasonable ofthe lot, eh? Jack the Giant-Killer ought to be a good subject for aministerial attack."

  "Well, he pulled poor old Santa Claus to pieces," said Mrs. Idiot, witha sigh.

  "Why didn't you bring me a piece of him as a souvenir?" demanded theIdiot. "Just a lock of his hair for my collection of curios? What wasdone with the remains?"

  Mrs. Idiot laughed as she pulled over her gloves and smoothed them uponher lap.

  "There weren't any remains," she answered. "When Dr. Preachly gotthrough with him there wasn't a vestige of the old chap left. To beginwith, he was a lie, the doctor said. Then he went on and showed that hewas a wickedly partial old fellow--a very snob, he called him--becausehe gives fine things to the children of the rich and little or nothingto the children of the poor. He filled the little folk with hope andbrought them disappointment, and so on. It was a powerful sermon,although I wanted to weep over it."

  "Go ahead and weep," said the Idiot; "it's the appropriate thing to do.I don't wonder you wanted to cry; you've always liked Dr. Preachly."

  "Of course," said Mrs. Idiot.

  "And you hate to see him make a--ah--a--well, you know--of himself inthe pulpit; and I quite agree with you. I rather like Preachly myself.It is too bad to see a well-meaning man like that batting his brains outagainst the rock of Gibraltar, whether suicide is sin or not. What hasput him in this despondent mood? Do you suppose he has heard?"

  "Heard what?" demanded Mrs. Idiot.

  "About the slippers," said the Idiot.

  "What slippers?" asked his wife.

  "Oh, the same old slippers," said the Idiot. "You know the ones Imean--the ones he's going to get from Santa Claus. Really, I'm notsurprised, after all. If I were a minister, and realized that truckloadsof embroidered slippers of every size and color, covered with stags ofred worsted jumping over rivulets of yellow floss, with split agates foreyes set in over the toe, were to be dumped in my front yard everyChristmas Eve by that old reprobate, Santa Claus, I think I, too, wouldset him down as a fraud, or an overworked cobbler, anyhow."

  "'DR. PREACHLY ONLY GOT EIGHT PAIRS LAST XMAS'"]

  "That's exaggerated--a comic-paper idea," said Mrs. Idiot. "I don'tbelieve the average clergyman gets so many slippers. Dr. Preachly onlygot eight pairs last Christmas."

  "Is that all?" cried the Idiot. "Mercy, what a small income of slippers!Dear me! how can he live with only eight pairs of slippers? But, afterall, slippers are an appropriate gift for a clergyman," he added, "andSanta Claus should be credited with that fact. Slippers have soles, andthe more slippers he gets the easier it is to save their soles, andtherefore--"

  "Really, my dear, you are flippant," said Mrs. Idiot.

  "Not at all," rejoined the Idiot. "I am merely trying to sit on twostools at once--to retain my respect for Dr. Preachly without giving upmy everlasting regard for Santa Claus. If I can't do both I am very muchafraid it will be Dr. Preachly, and not Santa Claus, who will go to thewall in this establishment, and that would be sad. I can't say I thinkmuch of the doctor's logic. Do you?"

  "I didn't notice his logic," Mrs. Idiot replied.

  "Very likely," said the Idiot; "from what you tell me of his discourse Iimagine he must have left it at home, which is a bad thing to do in anargument. To begin, he called Santa a lie, did he?"

  "Yes; said he didn't exist at all."

  "Good! Then how could he have been a snob?"

  "Why, while of course I have no sympathy with his conclusions, Dr.Preachly handled that point pretty well. It certainly is true that inthe homes of the rich there is a lavishness of gifts that you don'tfind in the homes of the poor, and therefore Santa Claus treats the richbetter than he does the poor. We all know that."

  "Hum!" said the Idiot. "And so it is Santa Claus who is the snob, eh,and not Fortune?"

  "Well, Dr. Preachly did not touch upon that. All he said was that SantaClaus was a snob for favoring 'high society' and in many casesabsolutely ignoring the submerged."

  "But I don't see how," said the Idiot.

  "Suppose he brings a diamond necklace to the daughter of a Croesus?"

  "Precisely," said the Idiot.

  "'A CHINA DOLL TO THE DAUGHTER OF A CARPENTER'"]

  "And a china doll to the daughter of a carpenter?" said Mrs. Idiot.

  "That's tact, not snobbishness," said the Idiot. "What would thedaughter of a carpenter do with a diamond necklace? The china doll isnot only more appropriate, but a better plaything."

  "Well, anyhow, he gives richly to those that have, and sparsely, if atall, to those that haven't, Dr. Preachly said," said Mrs. Idiot.

  "There is scriptural authority for that," observed the Idiot. "I wonderif Dr. Preachly reads his Bible! Perhaps I'd better send him one forChristmas instead of a pair of galoshes. He'll find in the Bible that'to him that hath shall be given,' and so forth. But to return to thelogic--"

  "I told you I didn't notice it," said Mrs. Idiot.

  "Nor did Dr. Preachly, my dear; passed it by as if it were a poorrelation, apparently. But this is true, a lie is an untruth. Truth alonelives, therefore an untruth does not live. Santa Claus is a lie and doesnot live, and is a snob, according to our reverend logician. Now, howcan one who does not live be a snob or anything else? Truly, I wish Dr.Preachly would be more careful in his statements. As a pew-holder in hischurch I do not like to hear him denounce something that does not existas having unworthy qualities. It's like shaking a sword at nothing andpatting yourself on the back afterwards for your courage; still more inthis instance is it like batting your poor mortal head against the hardsurface of an everlasting rock, and our clergy should be in betterbusiness.

  "Let 'em fight the harmful lies--the lies of false social ideas aspropagated by distinctions of pew-holding, for instance. The man whosits in the front of the church is no better than the man who sits atthe back, and is frequently his inferior; but has he more or has he lessinfluence? The man who hands in his check for ten thousand dollars,having that and more to spare, is not more the friend of religion andChristianity than the poor beggar who stumbles in and puts his penny inthe plate, thus diminishing by one-fifth his capital. Suppose SantaClaus is in a material sense a fancy or a lie; Heaven help Dr. Preachlyif he can't see the beauty and the ethical value of the deception. Is henot the embodiment of the golden rule, and is he not, after all--Godbless him and them!--something beautiful in the eyes of the children?"

  "I'm flippant, and I know it, but there are some things I cling to," headded, after a pause. "Santa Claus is one of them, and Dr. Preachly canpreach through all eternity, and, with all due respect to him, he can'tremove from my mind the beauty of an idea that was planted there by twopeople who were practical enough, my father and my mother. I'veinherited Santa Claus, and I
'm not going to give him up, and nopreacher in our church or in the church of others can take him away fromme by one sermon, or by an infinite number of sermons, however sincerethey may be. Is dinner ready?"

  Dinner was ready. It was eaten reflectively, and after it the childrenwent to Sunday-school. From this Tommy returned with a swollen eye,which later became dark.

  "Hullo, pop!" he said, addressing the Idiot as he entered the house.

  "'HULLO, SONNY! HAD A GOOD TIME?'"]

  "Hullo, sonny!" replied the Idiot, observing the swollen eye. "Had agood time?"

  "Yep," said the boy; "pretty good."

  "Been fighting?" suggested the Idiot.

  "Not so very much," said the boy; "only a little." And he began to singa popular air, as if he didn't care much about life in general, anddidn't mind an aching eye, which was rapidly, by its inflammation,giving away the fact that he had met with trouble.

  "What did you learn at Sunday-school?" asked the Idiot.

  "More blessed to give than to receive," said Tommy.

  "Good!" said the Idiot. "I hope you will remember that, sonny. There isno satisfaction in all the world like that of giving if you can affordit."

  "'I GAVE MY DOLLY AWAY TO-DAY'"]

  "I think tho, too," said Mollie, sitting down on her father's lap withthe contented sigh of a little girl who has discovered that life is notall an illusion. "I gave my dollie away to-day, papa," she added. "Shewath only thawdust, and Pollie Harrington hath her now. She was adrefful care, and I'm glad to be ridden of her."

  But the Idiot's mind was not on dolls, and he showed it. His boy's eyeproved a greater care.

  "Come here, my boy," he said.

  The boy approached inquiringly.

  "How did this happen?" the Idiot asked. "Your eye is swollen."

  "Oh, I don't know," cried Tommy, exultantly. "Jimmie Roberts said therewasn't no Santy Claus."

  "Well?"

  "I said there was, an' then I gave him one on the end of his nose."

  Here the boy struggled away from his father, as if he had done somethinghe was willing to stand by.

  "Let me understand this," said the Idiot. "Jimmie said--"

  "There wasn't any Santy Claus," interrupted Tommy.

  "Then what did you say?" asked the Idiot.

  "I told him he didn't know what he was talking about," said Tommy.

  "Why did you say that?"

  "Because he was wrong, papa," said Tommy. "I've seen Santy Claus; I sawhim last year."

  "Ah! You did, eh? I was not aware of that fact."

  Tommy began to laugh.

  "You can't fool me, daddy," he said, climbing onto his father's knee."Of course I've seen him, and he's the bulliest feller in all the world._You're him!_"

  And a hug followed.

  Later on Mrs. Idiot and the Idiot sat together. The latter was deep inthought.

  "Children have queer notions," said he, after a while.

  "They are generally pretty right, though," observed Mrs. Idiot. "You area pretty good Santa Claus, after all," she added.

  "Pollie," said the Idiot, rising, "I believe in Santa Claus because herepresents the spirit of the hour, and whoever tries to turn him downtries to turn down that spirit--the most blessed thing we have. Let'skeep the children believing in Santa Claus, eh?"

  "I agree," said Mrs. Idiot. "For the secret is out. You are Santa Clausto them."

  "Heaven grant I may always be as much," said the Idiot. "For if a fatheris Santa Claus, and a boy or a girl believes in Santa Claus as a friend,as a companion, as something that brings them only sincerity and loveand sympathy, then may we feel that Tiny Tim's prayer has been answered,and that God has blessed us all."