A CHRISTMAS STORY.  
It was the afternoon of the 24th of December, a dull, gray afternoon, with a sky frowning over it which was all one cloud, but from which neither rain nor snow fell. A certain insinuating breath of cold was in the air, more penetrating than the crisp, keen wind of the sharpest January day.
 
Olive Haygarth shivered as she walked along the bleakest side of Harrison Avenue, down town. She was making her way to Dock Square, to carry home to a clothing store some vests which she and her mother had just completed.
 
After a while she turned and walked across into Washington Street, for an impulse came over her to see all the bright Christmas things in the shop[Pg 129] windows, and the gay, glad people, getting ready to keep holiday.
 
She had meant, when she set out on her walk, to avoid them, for she knew that her mood was bitter enough already. She had left no brightness behind her at home. There were but two of them, herself and her mother, and they were poor people, with only their needles between them and want.
 
They had never known actual suffering, however, for Mrs. Haygarth had worked in a tailor's shop in her youth, and had taught Olive so much of the intricacies of the business as sufficed to make her a good workwoman.
 
Accordingly they did their sewing so well as to command constant employment and fair prices. But after all it was ceaseless drudging, just to keep body and soul together. What was the use of it all? Not enjoyment enough in any one day to pay for living,—why not as well lie down and die at once?
 
She walked on sullenly, thinking of these things. An elegant carriage stopped just in front[Pg 130] of her, and a girl no older than herself got out, trailing her rich silk across the sidewalk, and went into a fashionable jeweller's.
 
Olive stopped, and looking in at the window, ostensibly at the vases and bronzes, watched the girl with her dainty, high-bred air. She noted every separate item of her loveliness,—the delicate coloring, the hair so tastefully arranged, the pure, regular features. Then she looked at the lustrous silk, the soft furs, the bonnet, which was a pink and white miracle of blonde and rosebuds. How much of the beauty was the girl's very self, and how much did she owe to this splendid setting? Olive had seen cheeks and lips as bright and hair as shining when she tied on her own unbecoming dark straw bonnet before her own dingy looking-glass.
 
She went on with renewed bitterness, asking herself, over and over again, Why? Why? Why? Did not the Bible say that God was no respecter of persons? But why did He make some, like that girl in there, to feed on the roses and lie in the lilies of life,—to wear silks, and[Pg 131] furs, and jewels, and laces, and then make her to work buttonholes in Butler & Co.'s vests? Was there any God at all? or, if there was, did He not make some people and forget them altogether, while He was heaping good things on others whom He liked better? She could not understand it. And then to be told to love God after all; and that He pitied her as a father pitied his children! Why! that girl in the silk dress could love God, easily,—that command must have been meant for her.
 
Going on she caught a glimpse of an illumination in the window of a print shop.
 
"Peace on Earth and Good-Will toward Men" was the legend set forth by the brilliantly colored letters.
 
What a mockery those words seemed to be! There had never been peace or good-will in their house, even in the old days when they were tolerably prosperous, before her father went away.
 
She walked very slowly now, for she was thinking of that old time. She had loved her father more than she had ever loved any one else.[Pg 132] To her he had always been kind; he had never found fault with her, and had smoothed all the rough places out of her life. Her mother had been neat and smart and capable, as the New England phrase is. Higher praise than this Mrs. Haygarth did not covet. But like many capable women, she had acquired a habit of small faultfinding, a perpetual dropping, which would have worn even a stone, and George Haygarth was no stone.
 
The woman loved her husband, doubtless, in some fashion of her own, but to save her life she could not have kept from "nagging" him. She fretted if he brought mud upon his shoes over her clean floor, if he spent money on any pleasure for himself, any extra indulgence for Olive; above all, if he ever took a fancy to keep holiday.
 
Just five years ago things had come to a climax. Olive was thirteen years old then, and he had brought her home for Christmas some ornaments,—a pin and earrings, not very expensive, but in Mrs. Haygarth's eyes useless and unnecessary. She assailed him bitterly, and for a[Pg 133] marvel he heard her out in dumb silence. When she was all through, he only said,—
 
"I think I can spare the eight dollars they cost me, since I am not likely to give the girl any thing again for some time. It will be too far to send Christmas gifts from Colorado."
 
Mrs. Haygarth's temper was up, and she answered him with an evil sneer,—
 
"Colorado, indeed! Colorado is peopled with wide-awake men. It's no place for you out there."
 
He made no reply, only got up and went out; and, going by Olive, he stooped and kissed her. How well she remembered that kiss!
 
Through the week afterward he went to his work as usual, but he spent scarcely any time at home, and when there made little talk. All his wife's accustomed flings and innuendoes fell on his ears apparently unheeded. The night before New Year's he was busy a long time in his own room. When he came out he handed Mrs. Haygarth a folded paper.
 
"There," he said, "is the receipt for the next[Pg 134] year's house rent, and before that time is out I shall send you the money, if I am prospered, to pay for another year. I have taken from the savings-bank enough to carry me to Colorado and keep me a little while after I get there; and the bank book, with the rest of the five hundred dollars, I have transferred to you. If I have any luck you shall never want,—you and Olive. You'll be better off without me. I think I've always been an aggravation to you, Martha,—only an aggravation."
 
He went back again into his room, and came out with a valise packed full.
 
"I think I'll go away now," he said. "The train starts in an hour, and there is no need of my troubling you any longer."
 
Then he had taken Olive into his arms, and she had felt some sudden kisses on her cheek, some hot tears on her face; but he had said nothing to her, only the one sentence, gasped out like a groan,— "Father's little one! father's little one!"
 
Olive shivered and then grew hot again, as she remembered it; and remembered how wistfully he[Pg 135] had looked afterwards at his wife, reading no encouragement in her sharp, contemptuous face.
 
"I guess you'll see Colorado about as much as I shall," said Martha Haygarth, sneeringly. "Your courage may last fifty miles."
 
He did not answer. He just shut the door behind him and went out into the night,—and she had never seen him since, never heard his voice since that last cry,—"Father's little one!"
 
She felt the thick-coming tears blinding her eyes, but she brushed them resolutely away, and looked up at the Old South clock just before her.
 
Almost five. The sun had set nearly half an hou............