Adventures in Friendship | Page 6

of company."
"Weren't you telling me the other day how many people who were really suffering were too proud to let anyone know about it? Weren't you advising the necessity of getting acquainted with people and finding out--tactfully, of course--you made a point of tact--what the trouble was?"
"But I was talking of poor people."
"Why shouldn't a rule that is good for poor people be equally as good for rich people? Aren't they proud?"
"Oh, you can argue," observed Harriet.
"And I can act, too," I said. "I am now going over to invite the Starkweathers. I heard a rumor that their cook has left them and I expect to find them starving in their parlour. Of course they'll be very haughty and proud, but I'll be tactful, and when I go away I'll casually leave a diamond tiara in the front hall."
"What is the matter with you this morning?"
"Christmas," I said.
I can't tell how pleased I was with the enterprise I had in mind: it suggested all sorts of amusing and surprising developments. Moreover, I left Harriet, finally, in the breeziest of spirits, having quite forgotten her disappointment over the non-arrival of the cousins.
"If you should get the Starkweathers----"
"'In the bright lexicon of youth,'" I observed, "'there is no such word as fail.'"
So I set off up the town road. A team or two had already been that way and had broken a track through the snow. The sun was now fully up, but the air still tingled with the electricity of zero weather. And the fields! I have seen the fields of June and the fields of October, but I think I never saw our countryside, hills and valleys, tree spaces and brook bottoms more enchantingly beautiful than it was this morning. Snow everywhere--the fences half hidden, the bridges clogged, the trees laden: where the road was hard it squeaked under my feet, and where it was soft I strode through the drifts. And the air went to one's head like wine!
So I tramped past the Pattersons'. The old man, a grumpy old fellow, was going to the barn with a pail on his arm.
"Merry Christmas," I shouted.
He looked around at me wonderingly and did not reply. At the corners I met the Newton boys so wrapped in tippets that I could see only their eyes and the red ends of their small noses. I passed the Williams's house, where there was a cheerful smoke in the chimney and in the window a green wreath with a lively red bow. And I thought how happy everyone must be on a Christmas morning like this! At the hill bridge who should I meet but the Scotch Preacher himself, God bless him!
"Well, well, David," he exclaimed heartily, "Merry Christmas."
I drew my face down and said solemnly:
"Dr. McAlway, I am on a most serious errand."
"Why, now, what's the matter?" He was all sympathy at once.
"I am out in the highways trying to compel the poor of this neighbourhood to come to our feast."
The Scotch Preacher observed me with a twinkle in his eye.
"David," he said, putting his hand to his mouth as if to speak in my ear, "there is a poor man you will na' have to compel."
"Oh, you don't count," I said. "You're coming anyhow."
Then I told him of the errand with our millionaire friends, into the spirit of which he entered with the greatest zest. He was full of advice and much excited lest I fail to do a thoroughly competent job. For a moment I think he wanted to take the whole thing out of my hands.
"Man, man, it's a lovely thing to do," he exclaimed, "but I ha' me doots--I ha' me doots."
At parting he hesitated a moment, and with a serious face inquired:
"Is it by any chance a goose?"
"It is," I said, "a goose--a big one."
He heaved a sigh of complete satisfaction. "You have comforted my mind," he said, "with the joys of anticipation--a goose, a big goose."
So I left him and went onward toward the Starkweathers'. Presently I saw the great house standing among its wintry trees. There was smoke in the chimney but no other evidence of life. At the gate my spirits, which had been of the best all the morning, began to fail me. Though Harriet and I were well enough acquainted with the Starkweathers, yet at this late moment on Christmas morning it did seem rather a hair-brained scheme to think of inviting them to dinner.
"Never mind," I said, "they'll not be displeased to see me anyway."
I waited in the reception-room, which was cold and felt damp. In the parlour beyond I could see the innumerable things of beauty--furniture, pictures, books, so very, very much of everything--with which the room was filled. I saw it now, as I had often seen it before, with