A Manhattan Christmas Story
CHAPTER I
NICHOLAS APPEARS
ON a snowy Christmas Eve a Brownie was hiding in the Children's Room of the Public Library, waiting for something wonderful to happen.
The Brownie had lived in this room for years and years and although she knew every nook and cranny of it by daylight, or moonlight, or electric light on ordinary days, on Christmas Eve it was different. Everything was touched with magic and the Brownie's eyes sparkled as she looked over to the Christmas Tree in the Fifth Avenue window and saw a Norwegian Troll climbing down one of its branches.
"Merry Christmas, old Giant," said the Brownie softly, for she knew that Trolls are very shy when they first appear on Christmas Eve. "There's a fine bowl of porridge with thick cream set out for you down in Hudson Park and all your old friends are waiting for the good luck you bring every year."
"Skaal, Brownie, my love," the Troll called out. "I saw you down in the Christmas Tree Market the day my ship sailed up North River. I was on the Bridge with the Captain when you picked out this very Christmas Tree and the holly wreaths in the windows and all the hemlock boughs. It seems like home the way you've fixed things for Christmas here. I like the smell of it. I'm coming down."
The Troll gave a leap from the Christmas Tree and landed right beside the Brownie in a corner of the window seat. Just then the Fifth Avenue window swung wide open and in walked a strange boy about eight inches high. His face glowed like a Christmas fire as he shook the snow from his woolen muffler and stood there on the window sill looking out over the red tiled floor.
He was dressed in a pair of long, bright blue cloth breeches reaching to his ankles and a short jacket of brown homespun edged with red. Underneath his jacket a white vest showed just the least little bit. On his head was the blue helmet of a French poilu, on his feet the kind of wooden shoes the boys wear in Holland. His cheeks and lips and nose were bright red and his hands were the kind of hands you want to shake or to fill full of things to give away.
Closing the window very carefully this strange boy climbed down to the little platform below the window seat on which the Brownie was sitting and looked up at her.
"Who are you?" asked the Brownie wonderingly.
"Don't you know me, Brownie? I'm Nicholas."
"Where did you come from, Nicholas?"
"Straight from the ship. I got off at the Battery and walked along shore to the north until I came to that funny round building down there, then I began to run and the first thing I knew I was right back where I started from. I was in a hurry to get up town so I looked at my map, walked across Battery Park to the Sixth Avenue 'L' station and took the first train up to Forty-second Street. I like riding on the Elevated. When I got to Forty-second Street I walked straight over to Fifth Avenue and asked a policeman the nearest way to Christmas in New York. The policeman pointed over here and I came along up the steps past the flagstaff, and saw the window open so I slipped through the grating and walked in. Was anybody expecting me?"
"I was," said the Troll. "I knew you would be coming along so I left the window open for you."
"Very thoughtful of you, I'm sure," said Nicholas. "What do you do here on Christmas Eve?"
"I give a party," said the Brownie, "and invite everybody–Fairies, Giants, Trolls, Witches, Christmas Ghosts, Nixies, Pixies, Elves, Gnomes, Goblins, White Bears, Black Cats, Parrots. All the animals that talk or sing and all the people I like–Alice, Pinocchio, Hansel and Grethel, Sindbad and the rest. They're glad enough to get out of the books once a year I can tell you. The whole Brownie family takes a hand and we have lots of fun."
"Could I come to the party?" asked Nicholas.
"Glad to have you if you can be here on the stroke of midnight," said the Brownie. "But remember, when the clock in the Traffic Tower stops striking twelve all the windows and doors shut tight. No one can get in after that."
"I'll be on hand," said Nicholas. "May I look at the books to see who is coming to the party?"
"You may if you will be sure to put every one back just where you find it," said the Brownie. "I've given every one a number and they hate losing their places and getting lost on the night of a party."
"All right," said Nicholas, "I'll be careful," and he climbed down from the window seat and clattered away over the red tiled floor into the picture-book room where he found Peter Rabbit, Tom Thumb, Aladdin, Robinson Crusoe and other old friends, waiting for the Christmas Party to begin.
Nicholas had just taken out his little red leather book and was writing down the names of some books he had never seen before–"Perez the Mouse," "The Magic Fishbone," and "The Short History of Discovery," when the Brownie called out:
"I'm nearly starved! Come along Nicholas. Let's go over to Lucky's for a Christmas bite."
Rummaging through one of the drawers of the desk she drew forth a long red candle, lighted it, and handing the candle to Nicholas, the Brownie ran out of the Children's Room by the Forty-second Street entrance and disappeared in Bryant Park.
CHAPTER II
AT LUCKY'S
BRYANT PARK lay deep in snow behind the Library. It was silent and deserted, and for a moment Nicholas stood holding the red candle not knowing which way to turn to go to Lucky's. Then he heard. voice calling:
"Nicholas, Nicholas, run, I pray,
Thrice round the Fountain;
And when I say
Cross over, cross over, cross over, criss,
The way to Lucky's you cannot miss."
Nicholas ran three times around the Fountain and the third time round, the Brownie, who had been hiding under the canopy of William Cullen Bryant's statue, jumped down crying: "Come along Nicholas or we shall be too late. Lucky goes home early on Christmas Eve."
Just then Nicholas heard a rumbling sound he had heard before and looking up through the frosty trees he saw the train he had taken up from Bowling Green running rapidly back down town with a light in every window.
"I like Bryant Park with the Elevated running by," said Nicholas.
"So do I," exclaimed the Brownie. "I love it better than any place on Manhattan Island. I've lived here a long, long time, Nicholas. Before there was a Library here there was a big Reservoir with ivy growing over its walls. It was beautiful in October when the ivy leaves turned red. I always gave a party then–an out-of-doors party at sunrise, for at sunrise, Fifth Avenue is cleared for dancing all the way from Central Park to Washington Square."
"Why not give a party on the roof of the Library," asked Nicholas, "and invite the oldest fairies in the city up there to look around?"
"A fine idea," shouted the Brownie. "I could invite the fairies from Bowling Green, the Bowery, Gramercy Park, and Van Cortlandt Park. Oh, Nicholas, I'm glad you've come to New York. Shall you stay long?"
"That depends," said Nicholas.
"Do be careful crossing Fortieth Street," cautioned the Brownie, "it is getting almost as crowded as Forty-second Street and there's no policeman."
Forty seconds after Nicholas and the Brownie stepped out of Bryant Park they were walking down a long passage-way with steps at the bottom, leading straight to Lucky's Christmas fire. There was a flower-shop on one side of the passage-way and a hat-shop on the other. There was always room enough in the hat-shop to hold the hats at any season, but the flower-shop was much too small at Christmas. Then the passage-way was lined with Christmas trees standing straight against the wall and there were orange trees with little oranges growing on them, pots of white heather, primroses, cyclamens and Jerusalem cherries making. garden path of the way to Lucky's.
"Lucky would like it to be this way all the time," confided the Brownie as they scampered along. "Lucky likes gardens best of all."
They could hear people talking and laughing and the clinking of silver teaspoons and glass goblets and, as they passed the last of the Christmas trees, Nicholas could smell the delicious fragrance of Maryland chicken and Christmas cakes just out of the oven.
Nicholas felt a little strange and far away as he stood at the top of the steps leading down into that cheerful room filled with people who seemed to feel so much at home there.
There were branches of red berries on the tables and holly wreaths in the windows. There were shining copper and brass candlesticks and jars, pewter mugs and plates and porringers on chimney piece and dresser, and the firelight shining on these things made Nicholas think of home. He looked at his candle. It had gone out. Nicholas untied his muffler and stood quite still for a moment.
"Do you suppose Lucky will let me light my candle at her fire, Brownie?" he asked.
"Of course she will, there comes Lucky now," whispered the Brownie. "Did you ever see such a Christmasy looking lady?"
And Lucky, who was actually even more Christmasy than she appeared to be, looked down just as Nicholas looked up.
"Oh, you darlings," she exclaimed, speaking in a tone so low that no one else could hear her. "I was sure you would be coming, Brownie. Your Christmas bite is all ready the same as always. I've just seen the cook about it. I've invited two of my friends this year for I knew some one else was coming. I think I know his name. How do you do, Nicholas?" and Lucky took Nicholas's hand and shook it so cordially that the last feeling of strangeness left him.
"I'm well," said Nicholas. "But how did you know me, Lucky? I had to tell Brownie who I was."
Lucky laughed one of her merriest laughs.
"It's a secret from everyone else, but if you really want to know, Nicholas, I had it from a fairy who was hidden away in one of the bulbs I got for my garden last Christmas time. Those tulip bulbs come over from Holland every year and I always watch for a fairy to give me the news.
"Last Spring I listened and I heard very plain: 'On St. Nicholas Day (December 6th) a boy called Nicholas will leave Holland and go forth through France and Belgium to America. Watch for him on Christmas Eve and make him welcome.' So you see, Nicholas, I've been expecting you ever since tulip time."
"I'm glad I came," said Nicholas.
"I'm starving, Lucky, starving," murmured the Brownie.
"So are Ann Caraway and John Moon," said Lucky, and in no time at all she had piloted the Brownie and Nicholas across the room to the table nearest the fire. Two people were sitting there looking very happy.
"I have a little surprise for you," said Lucky to Ann Caraway. "Shut your eyes tight and don't open them until I give the word."
So John Moon, who was a boy about twenty-one years old, and Ann Caraway, who was a lady of no particular age, shut their eyes tight and when Lucky called "Open" they saw by the light of a tall red candle, which stood in the middle of their table, a strange boy about eight inches high, accompanied by a Brownie.
"Oh, Nicholas," Ann Caraway said, shaking the hand he stretched out to her, "I knew you would come this Christmas Eve. I've been telling John that something wonderful, mysterious, and entirely different from every other Christmas was sure to happen and here you are at last. I suppose you left Holland on St. Nicholas Day, didn't you?"
"Yes, I did, but how could you know that, Ann Caraway?"
"I felt it in my bones," said Ann Caraway, and then her eyes danced so merrily that John Moon and Nicholas burst out laughing, and they laughed so heartily there was no stopping them until Bessy appeared with smoking hot little chicken pies, toasted cheese muffins, guava jelly, mince pie, and some special dainties sent up by the cook for the starving Brownie.
"Dear old Brownie," whispered John after they had all been eating in silence for some time. "I've often seen you in Bryant Park but how did you find out the way to Lucky's?"
"O'Brien told me one night as he was closing the gate to the Library Court. Lucky had brought him a great bunch of flowers from her garden that day. O'Brien loves flowers. I've come often since then and I know the way upstairs to that little ball-room, with the crystal chandeliers, and the balcony where you sit and eat cherry pie and tell secrets to Ann Caraway in Springtime. I like that little ball room."
"So do I," said John Moon.
When they had all eaten as much as they could John Moon took out his pipe and lit it, and as he smoked and talked, and talked and smoked, he leaned over and touched Nicholas's helmet very gently, saying, "Where did you find it, old chap?"
"On the Chemin des Dames," said Nicholas and turned his head away for a moment. Then he said, "John Moon, I want to do something for those children whose homes were destroyed in the War, and I put on this helmet so that I shouldn't forget about it."
"I understand," said John Moon. "I don't want to forget either. I came out of college in my freshman year because I wanted to do something. I drove TM (trench munitions) over the same road you took to the Chemin des Dames."
"And I understand, too, Nicholas," said Ann Caraway, "although I have never been in France except in my dreams. Perhaps I can help you find some way to do the things you want done over there. Will you stay here and tell me just what you think the French children would like to have us do?"
"I will stay on one condition, Ann Caraway."
"And what is the condition?" asked John Moon.
"That I'm free to go and come when I feel like it and not fussed over."
"I think you will want to go where Ann Caraway goes," said John Moon, "for fear of missing something. She makes things happen any time, not just at Christmas."
"I'll promise, Nicholas, you shan't be bothered by anybody and that you shall never go where you don't want to go," said Ann Caraway. "I'm on my way now to hear the Carols at Trinity. Would you two boys like to walk down Fifth Avenue with me?"
"We'd love it," shouted John Moon.
"Shall I give the red candle to Lucky?" asked Nicholas, and the Brownie called out:
"Oh yes, and be sure, Ann Caraway, to get her a branch of your pine and a Christmas rose to take home tonight, and another one, please, for O'Brien at the Library Gate, for I haven't time. I promised the cook to clear up Lucky's kitchen and then I have to get ready for the party." Away scampered the Brownie down the back stairs, and with a Merry Christmas to Lucky, away walked Nicholas, Ann Caraway, and John Moon past the Christmas trees and the door of the flower-shop and up Fortieth Street to Fifth Avenue.
"Shall we cross over?" asked John Moon.
"I'd like to," said Nicholas. "I want to look in the shop windows."
CHAPTER III
DOWN FIFTH AVENUE
"THE loveliest window I know is in a flower-shop opposite the Library," said Ann Caraway. "I see a new flower every time I look in, and Nicholas, one of the oldest fairies on Murray Hill lives under that big lacy fern. We will go there for our Christmas roses."
"What color shall we choose for O'Brien?" she asked as they entered the shop.
"A pink one for Lucky and a red one for O'Brien," said Nicholas, "and be sure, Ann Caraway, that they smell like roses. I like the smell of a red rose best."
John Moon offered to take the roses back across Fifth Avenue if Nicholas and Ann Caraway would choose a present for him in one of the windows of the Favorite. They were not to buy it until he came back, he said, as he might not like their choice of a present.
But there were so many other people looking for presents in every single one of the ten windows of the Favorite that Nicholas and Ann Caraway could see nothing at all so they waited for John Moon at the corner of Fortieth Street.
"Why not step across and look in a Mirror?” called John Moon as he stood on the opposite corner on his way back from Lucky's.
Ann Caraway shook her head and John Moon crossed over.
"It would be silly to stop to look at ourselves in a mirror on Christmas Eve," said Nicholas, who supposed John Moon meant a looking-glass. John Moon laughed and Ann Caraway suggested waiting until after the Carols to visit the Favorite and the Mirror.
"The streets and shops will be less crowded then," said she, "and we can buy presents for other people as well as for you, John Moon."
"Are all the people in the world spending Christmas in New York?" asked Nicholas, as they stood on the crest of Murray Hill while hundreds of men, women, and children carrying parcels of every color, shape, and size streamed past them.
High above Fifth Avenue at Forty-second Street rises the Traffic Tower and in it, like a captain on the bridge of his ship, stands the new traffic policeman–the Policeman of the Signal Lights. When he flashes an orange light, long lines of shiny motor cars and taxicabs–black, orange, yellow, blue, brown, red, green, gray, black-and-white, brown-and-white, and checkered come running north and south–down the avenue on one side–up the avenue on the other side for two minutes.
When he flashes a red light everything stops, north and south, east and west.
When he flashes a green light, two great armies of motor trucks and cars rush out from the side streets and run east and west for two minutes. At the same signal all the people walking on Fifth Avenue who want to cross the street, cross over.
"That is the finest set of flash lights I've ever seen!" exclaimed Nicholas. "I wish I could see how they are worked from inside, but I suppose no one ever climbs the ladder of the Traffic Tower except the Policeman of the Signal Lights."
"No," said Ann Caraway. "The Policeman of the Signal Lights looks out of every one of the windows in his little tower–north, south, east and west. There's no room for anybody else up there."
"Let's move on with the crowd," suggested John Moon, stepping back from the curb where they had been standing to watch the signal lights.
"I've marched to music often," said Nicholas, "but I never marched to lights before."
"Where do all the people come from and where are they going, Ann Caraway?" he asked, as they walked on down Fifth Avenue.
"I often wonder," said she. "I like to think of them as Christmas Folk come from far and near on Christmas Eve to walk or ride over the most beautiful street of the City just because they love to do it. All the great parades march up or down Fifth Avenue, Nicholas, but the greatest processions of all are like the one we have just joined."
"Fifth Avenue is the street our soldiers marched down on their way to France, and it became a street of the World when it was hung with the flags of the Allies in 1918. Everybody came out to walk on 'the Avenue of the Allies,' and one night all the motor cars and green buses were sent up Madison Avenue and the people of New York danced on Fifth Avenue, right in the middle of the street. It was a wonderful time."
"Why, there's the Waldorf!" exclaimed Nicholas.
"Who on earth told you where to find the Waldorf, Nicholas?" asked John Moon.
"Nobody. I've seen pictures of it and the Waldorf is marked on my map as the house where the King and Queen of Belgium stayed. King Albert was always slipping out incog at night to see the city from an airship, the Woolworth Tower, or, on his own feet, and I intend to do the same thing from wherever I stay."
"The Prince of Wales stayed at the Waldorf, too," said John Moon, "and so did Li Hung Chang."
"There's one man at the Waldorf I should like to meet," said Nicholas. "His name is Oscar and he is a wonderful chef who knows just what to give all the famous visitors for breakfast, dinner, and supper. Do you know Oscar, Ann Caraway?"
"I've never had the pleasure of meeting him, Nicholas," replied Ann Caraway, "but I've often seen his picture lighting the candles on a birthday cake and I have visited his kitchens. Kitchens are much more fun to see than big empty ball rooms and bed rooms. There is always something cheerful going on in a kitchen, but cooks are not very fond of having visitors."
"If Brownie would invite me to go with her I'm sure it would be all right," said Nicholas. "She probably knows the Waldorf cook. I'll ask her."
"BIRDS and DOGS," shouted Nicholas in big gold letters, above the noise of the traffic at Thirty-first Street. "I must have a look in the window of that shop! I can't wait to see what kind of birds and dogs they keep here on Fifth Avenue."
"I'll cross over with you, Nicholas," said John Moon, "if you will cross right back again with me and have a look at the sail boats in my old toy-shop window."
"Pick me up at Brentano's in exactly five flashes," exclaimed Ann Caraway. "I've thought of a present Nicholas must have on Christmas Eve," and away she sped down Fifth Avenue leaving John Moon and Nicholas to cross over to look in the window of BIRDS and DOGS and cross back again on the next flash from the Traffic Tower to look in the toy-shop window.
When they came to Twenty-seventh Street Nicholas said, "Isn't Brentano's the shop where you can buy books in all languages?"
"It certainly is," said John Moon, "but how came you to know about it, Nicholas?"
"The Captain told me. He goes there often to buy books for his cabin–books in all languages. He said I would find wonderful picture books there–picture books from all over the world."
There was no time for even a peep inside the big book-shop for Ann Caraway came hurrying out with a small flat parcel which she gave to John Moon to put in his pocket.
Out into Madison Square they moved with the great stream of Christmas Folk. The snow was still falling and the lights in the windows of the tall Flatiron building straight ahead of them glittered like hundreds of stars.
"All the winds and the mists gather about the Flatiron," said Ann Caraway, "and sometimes the great building itself looks like a ship moving up Fifth Avenue."
"Step back across the Square for a moment, Nicholas," said John Moon, "and take a good look at Diana on the tower of Madison Square Garden."
"If the Circus comes to Madison Square Garden," said Nicholas, "it must be a bigger building than it looks from here to hold all the animals."
No sooner did Nicholas set foot in Madison Square than a bird-like voice rang out from the Christmas Tree:
"I'm lonely down here in Madison Square,
I'm the last fairy left, does nobody care?"
"Of course somebody always cares," said Nicholas, "specially on Christmas Eve. But why do you stay here if you feel the way you sound? Why didn't you move away when the others did?"
"I stayed for three reasons," replied the Madison Square Fairy. "First, because I love Diana. Second, to keep Admiral Farragut company. He has nothing else except his field glasses and with all the high buildings in front of him he can't see very far. Third, I stayed hoping to gather enough fairy light for the Christmas Tree. You see Nicholas they use too much electricity. There is nothing magical about so many red and green electric bulbs. Diana says it looks more like a rocket than a Christmas Tree."
Just then the chimes rang out from the Metropolitan Tower and at the flash of its red beacon light, the Madison Square Fairy flew out from the Christmas Tree and perched on Admiral Farragut's shoulder, singing:
"I'm gay as a lark in old Madison Square,
Since Nicholas looked on my Admiral fair."
"I'll come to see the Admiral often," said Nicholas. "I like him very much."
"We must take a car down Broadway now," said Ann Caraway, "or we shall be late for the Carols!" As they stood waiting for the car where Broadway and Fifth Avenue come together, Nicholas suddenly called out, "What is that funny looking thing running along so close to the ground? It looks like a big green caterpillar."
"That is our Broadway car, Nicholas, and it opens by magic," said John Moon. Sure enough, before the car stopped, the doors flew open on one side and when Nicholas stepped in he saw the conductor sitting high up in the middle of the car in a little ticket office on stilts. John Moon dropped some nickels into the box and Ann Caraway found a vacant seat in the front end of the car, which looked just as queer inside as it did outside, the two ends being much higher than the middle.
"This kind of a car was invented for ladies who wore hobble skirts to hobble into," said John Moon to Nicholas, as they stumbled in after Ann Caraway.
The green caterpillar crawled rapidly down past Union Square, Grace Church, and City Hall Park, and when the doors flew open at the gate of Trinity Churchyard ever so many children got out and quickly disappeared through one of the side doors of the church. The central doors were closed. Ann Caraway was about to follow the children into the church when Nicholas called to her, "Please wait a minute, Ann Caraway. I like to stand outside and listen to the chimes and I think I've seen this place before. I want to make sure."
Just then Nicholas heard the same rumbling sound he had heard up in Bryant Park and looking across the snow-covered churchyard he saw an elevated railway train stealing down behind the old brown church.
"Oh, now I remember. I rode past here on my way uptown and there is an 'L,' station at the back, the first stop after Battery Place."
"Old Trinity is nearly as old as the city, Nicholas," said Ann Caraway, "and it belongs to every one who loves New York. Before the tall buildings shot up so high Trinity spire could be seen for miles and its bells and chimes could be heard over on Long Island and far down the Bay."
"I'm ready to go in now," said Nicholas, and Ann Caraway led the way by the side door the children had entered.
"There is something mysterious about those front doors," thought Nicholas, as he crossed the threshold and discovered that the corresponding inside doors were closed also, and he said to himself, "I wonder what they do here on Christmas Eve."
CHAPTER IV
AT OLD TRINITY
TRINITY CHURCH was full of children when Nicholas came in with his two friends.
"We are just in time," whispered Ann Caraway as they slipped into the only vacant seats near the mysterious doorway.
As Nicholas turned to look again at the closed doors he saw above them, all along the organ loft, not one, but many flags–the flags of other countries.
"I like to see the flags here," he whispered to Ann Caraway. Then, as he sat quite still, smelling the fragrant pine and watching the candles burn above the roses on the altar–far, far away he heard boys' voices singing:
"It came upon the midnight clear
That glorious song of old."
A door to the left of the chancel opened and out streamed the choir.
All over the church the children rose up, looking as if they were starting out on a wonderful journey. Down one side aisle came the choir and up another, circling the church, still singing:
"Look now, for glad and golden hours
Come swiftly on the wing."
"The Bishop of New York is walking at the end of the procession," Ann Caraway whispered to Nicholas, as the choir and the clergy were taking their places in the chancel.
There was a short service and then the Bishop, instead of mounting the high stairway into the pulpit, came and stood at the lower edge of the chancel, as near to the children as possible. Very clearly and beautifully he told the story of the first Christmas Eve and invited everybody sitting there in Trinity Church to go on a pilgrimage to Bethlehem.
As the Bishop spoke the last words of his invitation, the mysterious doors opened, and deep in the old doorway there stood a manger with the figures of the Christ Child and the Virgin Mary, the Shepherds with their sheep, and the Wise Men with their gifts.
At the call of trumpets the choir boys rose and, led by the trumpeters, they came down the central aisle to the mysterious doorway singing, "Noël, Noël."
Behind the choir came the clergy and the Bishop, then came the children–hundreds of children from all over the city–and the mothers and fathers and friends who had come with them walked beside them.
Everyone paused before the manger, then up the right-hand aisle moved the long procession singing, "Good King Wencelas." Through mysterious rooms behind the altar the children followed choir and clergy singing one old carol after another.
Down the left-hand aisle they came until at last every one had passed by the manger. As Nicholas and Ann Caraway slipped back into their seats the choir boys were singing:
"Oh, little town of Bethlehem
How still we see thee lie
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep
The silent stars go by."
"What a beautiful carol," exclaimed Nicholas as it ended, "I've never heard it before."
"It is an American carol, Nicholas," said Ann Caraway. "The words were written by a man everyone loved who became a bishop and whenever I hear them sung down here, where the great city of New York began as a little town, it seems to me no larger than the little village where I was born and first heard about him.
"An aunt of Phillips Brooks lived just across the street from my old home–a charming old lady who was the grandmother of one of my playmates."
"'I rocked Phillips in his cradle,' she would often say and she would tell things about him as a baby, a boy, and a man with nieces and nephews of his own–things which made him seem so real that I grew up thinking of Phillips Brooks as one who understood children and Christmas better than anyone else in the world."
"Did you ever see him, Ann Caraway?"
"Yes, twice, in his own Trinity Church in Boston. He was more wonderful than I know how to tell you. I always like to think of him here for he often came to Old Trinity to preach."
"Will you tell me about the big white flag with the blue and the gold stars?" Nicholas asked as they rose to leave the church.
"It is Trinity's Service Flag, Nicholas. There is a blue star for every one of the hundreds of men who served in the War and the gold stars are for the men who gave their lives."
"The church was often filled with soldiers in war time. I remember a Sunday when troops of Anzacs came to a service here on their way to France from their distant homes in Australia and New Zealand. The Bishop, who was not a bishop then but the rector of Trinity Church, welcomed the soldiers just as he welcomed the children today."
John Moon had become separated from Nicholas and Ann Caraway during the procession and he now joined them as they stood once more before the manger.
As they turned to go out from the church by the side door they met the Bishop wishing everybody a happy Christmas and looking as if the wish had already come true for himself.
"Please thank him for me, Ann Caraway," said Nicholas. "Tell him I shall come here whenever I am in New York on Christmas Eve."
Now Ann Caraway had never spoken to the Bishop before, but she couldn't well refuse to give a message from Nicholas, and the moment she began to speak he became a friend on the street of her own little town.
"I look forward to this Christmas Eve visit to Bethlehem all through the year, quite as eagerly as the children do," said the Bishop. "That must be why it seems so real," thought Nicholas.
CHAPTER V
BOWLING GREEN AND THE BATTERY
"LET'S keep on down to Bowling Green and look for St. Nicholas where Oloffe the Dreamer saw him," said John Moon with a beaming smile, and they passed through the gates of Old Trinity and turned down Broadway.
"Who was Oloffe the Dreamer?" asked Nicholas. "Will you tell me about him, John Moon?"
"Oloffe was a countryman of yours, Nicholas, of that famous race of Knickerbockers Washington Irving tells about. His real name was Oloffe Van Kortlandt and he longed for lands of his own for he had possessed none in the old world. Oloffe had an amazing talent for dreaming and for making his dreams come true. Irving says he was the first great land speculator in these parts."
The sun had gone down but sunset lights were still in the sky and a fresh wind was blowing up from the harbor. Lower Broadway was deserted at that hour and as he walked along listening to John Moon's story of Oloffe the Dreamer, it seemed to Nicholas that he could see that old Dutch ship–the Goede Vrouw with the image of St. Nicholas at her bow–sail slowly out from the harbor of Amsterdam in Holland over the same sea he had just crossed, through the Narrows, and up the Bay to the exact spot where he had landed that very Christmas Eve.
"Your countrymen landed in New Jersey first," John Moon was saying. "They were planning to build a great Dutch city over in Pavonia, as New Jersey was then called, but Oloffe told them that St. Nicholas had appeared to him in a dream the night before and told him to look for a better site for the new city. They were all very much impressed by Oloffe's dream and an expedition was at once fitted out to explore the coast. Oloffe was commodore of this voyage and he set forth in the jolly-boat of the Goede Vrouw with a squadron of three canoes.
"As they were coasting along past Governor's Island, a school of jolly Porpoises came rolling and tumbling by. Oloffe hailed the Porpoises with joy for he looked upon the appearance of these round, fat fish–burgomasters among fishes, he called them–as a happy omen of the success of the undertaking and directed his squadron to steer in their track.
"The Porpoises gave them a lively voyage up East River, where the rapid current seized the tub of a jolly-boat, whirled it about and hurried it forward with such velocity that Oloffe believed they were in the hands of some supernatural power and that the Porpoises were towing them to a fair haven where all their wishes and expectations would be realized.
"Borne on by the resistless current, they doubled the point of land we call Corlear's Hook and drifted into a sunny lake to which they gave the name of Kip's Bay in honor of the valiant Hendrick Kip at the bow of the jolly-boat. A sudden turning of the tide drove them to land at Bellevue, where they held a council-dinner, in the course of which the great family feud between the Tenbroecks and the Hardenbroecks broke out. Oloffe put an end to their lively and interesting dispute by deciding to explore still further in the track of the Porpoises.
"The tide having turned in their favor, they coasted along by Blackwell's Island, admiring the beauties of the fair island of Mana-hatta, with its great tulip-trees rising from forests of oak and chestnut and elm, until they came to a lovely woodland vista through which they looked toward Haarlem and Morrisania. The sun had gone down and they drifted quietly on in the purple haze of a Spring twilight until they were suddenly roused by the violent tossing of their boats. Great waves were boiling and foaming about them. Oloffe bawled aloud to put about, but his words were lost in the roaring of the waters. The winds howled, the waters raged and those infamous rocks, the Hen and Chickens, nearly sealed the fate of the heroes of Pavonia.
"But worse was yet to come. Into that tremendous whirlpool, the Pot, the jolly-boat was drawn and there whirled about until Commodore Van Kortlandt and his crew were completely overpowered by the horror of the scene and the strangeness of the revolution.
"When they came to their senses they found themselves stranded on the Long Island shore. Oloffe told many wonderful stories of his adventures in the Pot–how he saw spectres flying in the air and heard the yelling of hobgoblins and put his hand into the Pot when they were whirled about and found the water scalding hot, and beheld strange beings seated on rocks skimming it with ladles.
"Most of all he enjoyed telling that he saw the Porpoises, who had betrayed them into this peril–some broiling on the Gridiron and others hissing on the Frying-pan. Having made his escape from its terrors Oloffe naturally wished to give an appropriate name to this perfidious strait and he called it Helle-Gat (Hell-Gate). The Devil has been seen there, it is said, sitting astride of the Hog's Back playing on the fiddle or broiling fish before a storm.
"Oloffe and his remaining followers, for the squadron had been totally dispersed by the disaster, decided that it would never do to found a city in so diabolical a neighborhood. They made up their minds to roam no more and they steered their course back fully determined to build the Dutch city of their dreams in the marshy region of Pavonia where they had first landed. But just as they sighted the familiar shores of their own village of Communipaw, Commodore Van Kortlandt's tub was rolled high and dry on the point of an island which divided the bosom of the bay. Oloffe looked about and saw that the shore of this island abounded with oysters and he at once decided to celebrate his wonderful escape from Hell-Gate with a banquet.
"Invitations admitting of no refusal were dispatched to the oysters. A fire was made at the foot of a tree and all hands fell to roasting and broiling and stewing and frying and a sumptuous feast was soon set forth.
"Oloffe ate profoundly, and when he had finished he sank down upon the green turf and a deep sleep stole upon him.
"And the sage Oloffe dreamed a dream, and lo! the good St. Nicholas came riding over the tops of the trees in that self-same wagon wherein he brings his yearly presents to children and he descended and lit his pipe by the fire and sat himself down and smoked, and as he smoked the smoke from his pipe rose into the air and spread like a cloud overhead. And Oloffe bethought him, and he hastened and climbed up to the top of one of the tallest trees, and saw that the smoke spread over a great extent of country; and as he considered it more attentively, he fancied that the great volume of smoke assumed a variety of marvellous forms–palaces, domes, and lofty towers appeared and then faded away until the whole cloud rolled off and nothing but the green woods were left.
St. Nicholas at Bowling Green
"And when St. Nicholas had smoked his pipe, he twisted it in his hatband and laying his finger beside his nose, gave the astonished Van Kortlandt a very significant look, then mounting his wagon he disappeared over the tree tops. And Van Kortlandt awoke from his sleep greatly instructed; and he roused his companions and related his dream, and interpreted it to be the will of St. Nicholas that they should settle down and build a city here and that the smoke of the pipe was a type of how vast would be the extent of the city.
"Having accomplished their purpose, the voyagers returned merrily to Communipaw where they were received with great rejoicings. A general meeting was called of all the wise men of Pavonia and when they had listened to the whole history of the voyage and to Oloffe's dream they began at once to prepare to move from the green shores of Pavonia to the pleasant island of Mana-hatta.
"The 'grand moving,' as it was called, took place upon May Day. And after they had bought Manhattan Island from the Indians and had built a fort and a trading-house and some houses to live in, your countrymen built a chapel to the good St. Nicholas on the spot where he had appeared to Oloffe the Dreamer–the very spot where we are now standing, Nicholas," said John Moon, for they had entered Bowling Green Park, and Nicholas was staring straight ahead at the Custom House.
"What a perfectly wonderful Christmas Story! John Moon," he exclaimed.
"And you told most of it in Irving's own words," said Ann Caraway. "You must have learned it by heart."
"I suppose I do know that story almost by heart," John Moon responded. "I never tried telling it before but I liked it so much the first time I fished it out of Knickerbocker that the words stuck along with the story."
"Was Washington Irving named for George Washington?" asked Nicholas.
"He really was, Nicholas," said John Moon. "When General Washington entered New York with his army there was a little baby in a house not far from old Trinity whose mother settled the question of his name by saying, 'Washington's work is ended and the child shall be named after him.'
"This boy was six years old when George Washington came back to New York as President of the United States. Thanks to the enterprise of Lizzie, a Scotch maid in the Irving household, little Washington was presented to his great namesake. Lizzie wasted no time in formalities but followed the President into a shop one morning and saluted him saying:
"'Please Your Honor,' pointing to the little boy, 'here's a bairn as was named after you.'
"And Washington placed his hand on Washington Irving's head and gave him his blessing."
"He must have been very proud of his name after that," said Nicholas.
"He was proud of it," John Moon replied, "but Washington Irving was too full of fun and mischief when he was a boy to tell how much he really cared. He became a famous traveller, Nicholas, and he began to travel as soon as he could walk. The Town Crier was always bringing him home from his explorations of Manhattan Island, and as he grew older he wandered further away–up the Hudson to the Catskill Mountains, or down to the piers to watch the ships."
"Shall we go and watch the ships ourselves," said Ann Caraway, "the lights are coming on all over the harbor now."
"Why, there's the funny Round House I ran around!" exclaimed Nicholas as they crossed Battery Park. "It looks like a fort from here."
"Our Government did build it for a fort," said John Moon, "but the fort wasn't needed very long so it was turned into a great pleasure palace called Castle Garden with a bridge leading out to it from the mainland. A famous party was given there in honor of Lafayette and years afterward Barnum brought Jenny Lind over from Sweden to sing in Castle Garden. People came from all over the country just to hear her sing and to walk on the Battery, which was the fashionable promenade in those days."
"Do they have parties in the Round House now?" asked Nicholas.
"Marvellous parties," John Moon replied. "Blue Angel Fishes, Red-Breasted Sunfishes, Telescope Gold-fishes and Rainbow Trout swim around in the boxes and balconies where people used to sit and listen to Jenny Lind, while Seals and Sea Lions, Alligators and Crocodiles, Turtles and Bull Frogs slip and slide and hop and glide over the old ball-room floor. All the fishes and sea animals live in the Round House now and we call their palace The Aquarium."
"Are there any Porpoises?" asked Nicholas.
"Sometimes,” replied John Moon, "but Porpoises are not very fond of living in a palace. They like to be on the move."
"Exploring the coast for Oloffe or signalling ships, I suppose," said Nicholas. "I saw lots of them coming over."
"The nicest time of all to visit the fishes," said Ann Caraway, "is when the sun is shining straight into their palace windows. Then you can watch the gayest ones of all slip into one lovely ball dress after another while the old Sea Lion mounts his platform and calls the dances from the ball-room floor. Beau Gregory of the Bermudas leads off with Queen Trigger in her royal purple and gold–then little Half Moon comes dancing along with her other half, both in exquisite silver blue, carrying the tiny ladders they brought with them from South America, and looking back over their shoulders to watch the Japanese Goldfish spreading fantails and fringe tails to the sound of sea music. Faster than you can count, Nicholas, they come to the ball–Blue Parrots and Rabbit Fish, Red Snappers and Spot Snappers with old Sergeant Major; Moonfish and Fool Fish, Puffers and Blowers with Cow Pilot as leader, Nurse Sharks and Surgeons and hundreds of others, and after them all ride the Sea Horses."
"I'm coming down to the Round House the first sunny day!" exclaimed Nicholas, and as they walked back across Battery Park, he said to himself, "I wonder what the Fishes do Christmas Eve."
CHAPTER VI
TO WASHINGTON SQUARE
THE moon was looking over the clock tower on the Jefferson Market Court House straight into Patchin Place when Ann Caraway walked in with the two boys.
"I love to stand under the old street lamp at the far end and pretend I'm in London," said she. "Wouldn't you both like to try it while I choose some Christmas wreaths at the little flower-shop on the corner?"
Over the unbroken snow of Patchin Place ran Nicholas in his wooden shoes, never stopping until he stood under the old gas lamp at the far end.
"I've never been in London, John Moon, but it does look like pictures I've seen," he said.
Ann Caraway was waiting for them at the door of the flower-shop under its painted sign of a basket of flowers. She had chosen a soft pine wreath with cones on it and two smaller ones of red partridge berries.
"There are lovely holly boughs outside the other little flower-shop. Please pick out some branches with lots of berries, John Moon," she said and vanished from sight.
"Where are you, Ann Caraway?" called Nicholas. No answer. "She didn't go into the flower-shop, John Moon. Where can she be?"
"Ann Caraway. Ann Caraway," he called again and this time he called louder for a Sixth Avenue elevated train was thundering by.
"Lift up the latch and walk in, Nicholas," a merry voice called back, and to his utter amazement Nicholas beheld a green wooden gate close beside the flower-shop. Lifting the latch very cautiously he stepped from the sidewalk into a snowy courtyard. It was dark and mysterious.
"If Hans Andersen had ever lived in New York, I'm sure he would have lived in Milligan Place," said Ann Caraway, who was standing under the old street lamp by the side wall watching the doorways of three old houses on the other side of the courtyard.
"The landlord fills that old urn with flowers for the Greenwich fairies every Spring," she said, "and I know that people live in the three old houses but whenever I look in here I see only the cats of Milligan Place."
Just then John Moon stepped through the green gate with an armful of holly boughs.
"Once upon a time"–he began.
"There isn't time for a story, John Moon," said Ann Caraway. "We've still all the presents to buy, remember."
"Let's begin at Ugobono's!"
In one of the two windows of Ugobono's pastry shop there was a wonderful thin cake watch, with a chocolate stem winder, pink and white dots for the minutes, and vanilla hands. Back of the watch was a heap of round loaves of pani toni with raisins and citron sticking out of their sides and burnt almonds on top, a fluted-icing basket of meringue mushrooms stood on one side, and a pan of marrons glacé in pink and white paper cases on the other. In the other window were the most fascinating tin boxes and glass bottles swinging from basket hangers. They quickly filled a box with almond cakes and macaroons, pani toni and marrons, and Nicholas bought a big tin box with twenty-four little packages of nougat inside, each with a different picture of Italy on the wrapper.
When they came out of Ugobono's they walked along Eighth Street looking into the windows of fruit-shops and markets with Christmas trees beside their doors, until they heard the carol singers singing to the artists who live in the old stables in MacDougall Alley.
Candles burned in the stable windows and through an open doorway a Christmas fire sent its light across the snow.
"Let's follow on out into Washington Square," suggested John Moon.
"Some of the people who kept their horses in the stables of MacDougall Alley still live in the beautiful old red houses on the North Side," said Ann Caraway, as they passed out into the great Square which lay white and glistening in the moonlight.
"It is a lovely place to live," said Nicholas. "I'd like to look inside one of the old houses some day."
The windows of the tall apartment houses to the east and west were lighted also and as the Christmas Waits sang north and south, windows were raised and doors stood hospitably open.
As the singers moved across the Square on their way to Greenwich Village, John Moon suddenly exclaimed, "Here's our very own bus, Nicholas, scramble up on top!"
With a hand to Ann Caraway, they mounted the stairway to the top of a green bus and rode up past Washington Arch with its lighted Christmas trees, past the old Brevoort with holly wreaths in all the windows and a gay company of Christmas guests streaming in and out of its wide white doorway.
"Where are we going now?" asked Nicholas.
And John Moon leaned across the holly boughs to whisper in his ear. "We are riding north on a St. Nicholas bus. Do you like little old New York, Nicholas?"
"I love it," said Nicholas.
CHAPTER VII
CHRISTMAS EVE IN CHELSEA
"WILL you ride down to the Night before Christmas Country in our orange taxi or must we leave you at the Pennsylvania Station?" said Ann Caraway to John Moon as they came out of the Favorite loaded down with presents.
"I'd love to come to Chelsea with Nicholas," John Moon replied, "but Mother is expecting me home early to spend Christmas Eve with her, so please drop me at the station."
When they walked into the Mirror before visiting the Favorite, Nicholas discovered that the Mirror wasn't a looking-glass at all but a big candy-shop with all sorts of surprise presents. John Moon handed him a package of chocolate cigarettes and when Ann Caraway said, "Choose something, Nicholas," he pointed to a glass jar filled with red and white striped bull's eyes.
"Now let's fill a big box for other people," said Ann Caraway. They had great fun choosing, first a layer of lollipops, next a layer of red and yellow barley sugar horses and elephants and camels, then a deep layer of sticks and stumps of red and white and pink Christmas candy; after that came gum drops, marshmallows, and striped peppermint sticks. On top there were ever so many little surprises–no two alike–with candy canes slipped in between, and in the crooks of the canes little round cakes of chocolate frosted with tiny white sugar beads, and last of all, heaps of red checkerberries.
The box had to be kept right side up, so after Ann Caraway had paid for it, receiving in exchange for her money a handful of little silver watches and fiddles, pipes, trumpets, and steamboats, they put it in an orange taxi while they shopped at the Favorite.
All the presents at the Favorite cost either five cents or ten cents and with a jingling bag of new dimes and nickels there was no waiting for change. In less than ten flashes they had bought fifty presents, with ten gaily decorated boxes to put them in, and piled them high on the floor of the orange taxi. There was just room to squeeze in themselves.
Down Fifth Avenue they rode on a flash of orange light from the Traffic Tower, and turning west by the Waldorf on a flash of green, they were soon coasting rapidly down the long runway of the Long Island side of the Pennsylvania Station.
As he leaped from the taxi to run for his train, John Moon drew from his pocket the parcel tied with red cord and tossing it into Ann Caraway's lap he called, "I've guessed what it is, Nicholas. 'Happy Christmas to all and to all a good-night!'" and waving a trumpet and a Scotch plaid notebook he raced past the eager Red Caps and disappeared inside the big station.
"I like John Moon," said Nicholas. "What does he do, Ann Caraway?"
"He writes news for a newspaper but sometimes a story or a poem steals into his mind and he writes it down in a book of his own. That's why he wanted a note-book for a present."
"There's the Post Office!" cried Nicholas as they turned south on Eighth Avenue. "Please go slow," he called to the driver and leaning out of the taxi window he saw letters and packages coming out of every one of the eleven front doors of the big Post Office.
"The nicest presents of all are the Christmas Letters from Everywhere," said Ann Caraway. "Read what it says across the front of the Post Office–just above the pillars:
NEITHER SNOW–NOR RAIN–NOR HEAT
NOR GLOOM OF NIGHT STAYS THESE
COURIERS FROM THE SWIFT
COMPLETION OF THEIR
APPOINTED ROUNDS
"I'd like to be a Postman," said Nicholas. "It sounds wonderful."
"We're coming to the Night before Christmas Country!" Ann Caraway exclaimed at Twenty-fourth Street. "Prepare for surprises, Nicholas. There's Lucky's town house, she lives in one of the old Chelsea cottages with an iron portico in front and a little garden behind, but her real garden, where the tulips bloom, is out in the country."
On Tenth Avenue they met the first surprise. A boy on horseback, waving a lantern and a red flag as he rode just ahead to clear the way for the locomotive of a long freight train. This was not the kind of a locomotive you see anywhere else. It was made to look like a funny little house in the days when horses were afraid of the old wood-burning kind of engine with its big spark-drum and cow-catcher.
"We call him the Paul Revere of Chelsea, but the New York Central Railroad calls him a 'dummy-boy," said Ann Caraway. "You will hear his trains go by at all hours of day or night, Nicholas, and you will hear all the big steamers that put in or sail out from Chelsea Docks and all the little tugs that screech alongside them, and the whistles and the foghorns blowing from the ferry-boats crossing North River on stormy nights and mornings."
"I'm glad I came here with you, Ann Caraway," said Nicholas as they rode up past London Terrace, a row of old houses with deep door yards in front and gardens at the back which look into the gardens of Chelsea cottages.
At the oldest fruit-shop in Chelsea they stopped for a basket of red apples which George Bernero assured Ann Caraway came from "Up-State."
"There's Joe Star at the window," cried Ann Caraway as the orange taxi drew up before one of the old red brick houses in West Twentieth Street.
"Merry Christmas, Joe!" she called. "We can't move for the presents!"
"I'm coming!" shouted Joe Star, and a moment later he had gathered up every single one of the presents and was climbing the stairs to the Christmas Room leaving Nicholas and Ann Caraway to follow on behind.
Joe Star had been so intent on the presents that he didn't even see Nicholas until he turned to greet Ann Caraway with a "Joyeux Noël, ma chère tante!"
"Oh, Joe," said Ann Caraway with laughing eyes. "Here's Nicholas come for Christmas. My nephew Joe Star from Maine, Nicholas."
"Joyeux Noël, Nicolas!" responded Joe Star, shaking hands so cordially that Nicholas felt entirely at home, untied his muffler, and ran over to the fireplace to warm his hands.
"This accounts for the mysterious hamper I found on the steps as I came in," said Joe Star. "It is marked:
MERRY CHRISTMAS TO NICHOLAS AND JOE STAR
from LUCKY
per order of BROWNIE.
I didn't venture to unpack the hamper until I knew who Nicholas was."
"Suppose you and Nicholas unpack it now while I slip into another dress," said Ann Caraway and she left the two boys alone in the Christmas Room.
It was a big square room with two windows overlooking Chelsea Square. There was a Christmas tree in one window and red candles burned on the old mahogany desk which stood in the other.
When Ann Caraway came back she was wearing a cherry-colored dress and black velvet slippers with sparkling buckles. Taking a wreath of partridge berries from the heap of presents Joe Star had piled up on the floor she placed it on a pewter plate under the pine boughs on the dresser.
"A bit of the Maine woods, Nicholas," she called gaily and then she spied the little supper table in front of the fire.
"I've been saying, 'Little table appear,' all the time I've been dressing," she cried, "and here it is with quite the most delectable Christmas Eve supper I've ever seen." And seating herself in the big wicker chair Joe Star had placed for her, Ann Caraway took a second look at the wishing-table and she saw a plump little roast duck, a mould of red currant jelly, olives, bacon and celery sandwiches cut in three-cornered shapes, thimble biscuits, light as feathers, and a round Dutch cheese marked N. with hard toasted crackers beside it.
On the dresser were some very special Christmas cakes marked N., A. C., J. M., T. and B., a mince pie marked J. S., and two gingerbread boys.
"We unpacked only one layer of the hamper," said Joe Star. "Then we came to a big sign:
GO NO FURTHER, SAVE FOR BREAKFAST CHRISTMAS MORNING."
"I don't see what else there can be," sighed Ann Caraway."There's everything and more here."
"But you must both be hungry. Let's begin!"
"I'm nearly always hungry," said Nicholas as Joe Star began to carve the duck.
It was a merry little supper round that wishing-table for Joe Star cracked jokes and told funny stories, sometimes in English, sometimes in French, not that he knew the language very well but he liked to use all the French he knew.
"What do you do, Joe Star?" asked Nicholas.
"I go up to the moon in a large balloon, Nicholas, old boy. I take a hop whenever I can but I'm out of the Navy now looking for Captain Kidd's treasure here in New York."
"I can show you just where Captain Kidd used to live," cried Nicholas. "It is marked on my map. Can I help you look for treasure, Joe Star?"
"You certainly can, Nicholas, old boy. We'll have a high old time treasure-hunting up and down Wall Street and Maiden Lane, although they do say Gardiner's Island is the place to search."
When they had all eaten as much as they could, the wishing-table disappeared, and as they sat talking before the fire Ann Caraway suddenly remembered Nicholas's present and gave it to him.
Untying the red cord, Nicholas drew from its wrapping a flat red book with, "A Visit from St. Nicholas" printed on the cover.
"It's a jolly book," said he. "You read it to us, Ann Caraway."
"Yes, do read it," urged Joe Star and settled himself down in a big armchair before the fire. "I haven't heard it for almost a year."
So Ann Caraway began to read:
"'Twas the night before Christmas
When all through the house
Not a creature was stirring
Not even a mouse.
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;
The children were nestled all snug in their beds
While visions of sugar-plums danced through their heads,
And Mama in her kerchief and I in my cap
Had just settled our brains for a long winter's nap–"
Ann Caraway stopped short, and she and Nicholas watched Joe Star, open-mouthed. He was squatting on the hearth balancing a live coal over the bowl of his pipe and drawing at it furiously. Puffing clouds of smoke, Joe Star tossed the coal back into the fire and walked over to the window.
Ann Caraway read on:
"When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter
I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash...."
The window rattled. Nicholas and Ann Caraway turned in their chairs. Joe Star was hanging out of the window.
"Nicholas!" he called softly, "Nicholas, old boy!"
Nicholas ran over to the window.
"The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow
Gave a lustre of midday to objects below."
"On such a night a hundred years ago," continued Joe Star, "St. Nicholas came to Chelsea. It was a countryman of yours, Nicholas, a ruddy-faced Dutchman who lived on the old place who gave Clement Moore the high sign. And Clement Moore, I'm dead certain, deserted his library, left that remarkable Hebrew dictionary of his–he made the first one–and all his Oriental books and took a walk around his grandfather's Chelsea farm with the Dutchman, who told him everything he knew about St. Nicholas. There were no rows of houses in Chelsea then. It was like the open country and they could walk all over the place from Eighth Avenue to the river and cross lots from Nineteenth Street to Twenty-fourth Street.
"You see the church tower over in Chelsea Square, Nicholas. Just beyond it on a hill, facing the river, stood the old three-storied stone house where Clement Moore was born. It had a cupola and wide chimneys on top and on this side of it was a broad porch with a roof, shaded by a tall tree, most conveniently placed for climbing in and out of windows."
Nicholas chuckled and gave Joe Star a poke in the ribs.
"There was another porch in front of the house with a high flight of steps leading up to it, where the children used to sit and watch the boats on the river, but Clement Moore came back to the side porch after his walk with the Dutchman, you may be sure, and stood there in the moonlight looking across the fields and orchards he had already begun to give away.
"Then he lifted the latch very cautiously and went in, put on his cap, and sat down by the fire to watch for St. Nicholas.
"Your little red book tells the story of St. Nicholas's visit just as Clement Moore wrote it down as a present for his own little girls that Christmas Eve, never dreaming that he was writing our American Christmas poem. The children liked their father's present so much that they showed it to some of the many visitors who were always coming to stay at Chelsea. One of them copied it into her album and when she went home (she lived in Troy, New York) gave it to the editor of the Troy Sentinel, who published it with an old woodcut of St. Nicholas the very next Christmas (December 23, 1823).
"Other newspapers copied it and the boys and girls all over the country soon knew the poem by heart and have been repeating it on Christmas Eve ever since.
"How's that for a true story, Nicholas?"
"It's a good one, Joe Star. Tell me some more about that old house on the hill. What was it like inside?"
"I was never inside, Nicholas, old boy. The old house and the hill where it stood disappeared years ago [1853]. I saw a picture of it hanging in the real estate office round the corner. It reminded me of another old grey house on a hill in Portland, Maine, the house where I was born. It has a cupola, too, and it looks across an arm of Portland harbor to Cape Elizabeth. My grandfather was always walking about his old place.
"Clement Moore's grandfather–Captain Thomas Clarke, had a long record of hard fighting in the French and Indian Wars. When he was retired he decided to spend his old age in America, so he bought this tract of land three miles from City Hall and called it Chelsea after the old hospital near London.
"His house was burned over his head in his last illness and Clement Moore's grandmother, Mistress Molly Clarke, built the house St. Nicholas visited and lived in it for many years. When she died she willed it to her son-in-law Bishop Benjamin Moore who was Clement Moore's father."
"Clement Moore's father was the second Bishop of New York and a rector of Old Trinity," said Ann Caraway coming over to the window. "There was no school for bishops and clergymen in this country in his time so Clement Moore gave one of his fields and an orchard and helped build one. There it stands out in Chelsea Square. Up the street a little way there is an old grey stone church with a high tower which he also helped to build after first giving the land."
"Is it named for St. Nicholas?" asked Nicholas.
"No, for St. Peter. No one dreamed in the days when the church was built that this part of New York would ever be called, 'the Night before Christmas Country.'"
Joe Star drew in his head. "I haven't heard a single carol," he said with a sigh. "Is it too late?"
"We will be just in time to hear the Carols sung at Calvary Church if we start right off," said Ann Caraway. "The church is lighted only with candles and it is very lovely at this hour. We'll walk round the corner and see the moon over Gramercy Park afterward. Would you like to go, Nicholas?"
"No, thank you, I'm sleepy," said Nicholas. "I'll stay by the fire."
"You'd better turn in, Nicholas, old boy," said Joe Star. "I'll take the next watch."
Nicholas hopped into bed and before the street door closed behind Ann Caraway and Joe Star he was fast asleep.
CHAPTER VIII
ST. NICHOLAS COMES
THE hands on the clock of the Traffic Tower were pointing toward midnight when through the wide open windows of the Christmas Room came the first faint sound of jingling bells–nearer and nearer came the bells and then on the roof, the clatter of reindeers' hoofs and the calls of their driver.
Nicholas opened his eyes and there on the hearth stood a jolly old man, dressed all in fur, holding out a little fur coat and a scarlet cap.
"Quick, Nicholas, it's close upon midnight!"
In a twinkling Nicholas was inside the little coat and drawing the scarlet cap down over his helmet, he sprang up the chimney after St. Nicholas and into the waiting sleigh.
A word to the reindeer and away they flew–high over the snowy roofs above the fields and orchards of old Chelsea.
Far down North River they could see the lights of the ferry-boats crossing back and forth to the Jersey shore and tall ships rose in the moonlight beyond the Bay.
"I came by the harbor way," said St. Nicholas, "up over the Bowling Green and dear old Greenwich to Chelsea, and at midnight I always drive over the Bowery where my good friend Peter Stuyvesant rests."
In another second they were above St. Marks and Tompkins Square.
Far down East River they could see the twinkling lights of Brooklyn Bridge and Long Island, a fairyland under the stars.
The sleigh swerved in a zigzag and another sharp turn sent them flying north again. Faster and faster they flew over Stuyvesant Square, over Irving Place, and Gramercy Park.
"There's Diana," called Nicholas. "Merry Christmas, Diana!" he shouted as they passed, and Diana, standing on tiptoe, watched them fly up over Madison Avenue.
A little white marble palace shimmered in the moonlight as they looked down into a lovely garden sparkling with frost and snow. Then higher than they were riding, just above the reindeers' horns, rose a wonderful tower and the next instant the reindeers' hoofs struck the roof of a great marble palace and down one of its chimneys sprang St. Nicholas with the boy from Holland.
The fire had burned down to coals in the deep fireplace of a very beautiful room and beside it, in a comfortable armchair, sat an old man fast asleep.
"I wake him up every year," whispered St. Nicholas, "and this year I'm waking his children, for when I leave Haarlem I drive out over the Hudson River and straight on past the Kaatskill Mountains. Watch closely as I go, Nicholas, and when you hear the sound of a trumpet lead him over to the window before he sleeps again." And laying his finger aside of his nose, St. Nicholas gave a nod and vanished up the chimney.
The only light in the big room came from the moon streaming in through windows from which the soft blue velvet curtains had been drawn back, yet Nicholas could see quite clearly the face of the old man sitting there and it seemed to him one of the kindest and merriest he had ever looked upon.
As the reindeer raced off over the roof above his head, the old man woke with a start.
"There goes old St. Nicholas and I've missed him again. But, bless my soul, who are you!" he exclaimed. "The Old Fellow leaves me something every year but never a boy like you before. Who are you?"
"Don't you know me, Sir? I'm Nicholas. And you are, you are–I know you are–Washington Irving."
"To be sure I am, Nicholas, but how did you recognize me?"
"John Moon told me, Sir, just how you look. John Moon knows Diedrich Knickerbocker's History of New York by heart. He told me that funny story of Oloffe Van Kortlandt and the Porpoises on the way down to Bowling Green to look for St. Nicholas where Oloffe saw him."
Washington Irving chuckled with delight: "So John Moon remembers Oloffe, does he? Knows Knickerbocker by heart, does he? I have been asleep a long, long time but I'm wide awake this Christmas Eve."
And stretching out both hands to the little Dutch boy who stood smiling up at him from the hearth rug he called: "Jump up, Nicholas! and I will tell you a marvellous tale of the Goblins who guard the gold in the Kaatskill Mountains."
And as Nicholas sat listening to the story of the Goblins he could see the good St. Nicholas flying north over the Hudson–beyond the Palisades to the Catskill Mountains. And the sides of the mountains opened as he passed and out trooped an army of strange little men, laden with glittering gold, who marched down to the river and piled their gold on ships that waited there, and as the ships sailed away into the moonlight, Nicholas heard the distant call of a trumpet, and taking Washington Irving by the hand he led him over to the window as St. Nicholas had told him. And as they stood there at the wide-open window of the great palace they heard men's voices singing and the tramp of marching feet.
"They are singing the great song of St. Nicholas," cried Washington Irving.
"Look! Oh, look! Nicholas, the Knickerbockers are coming!"
And leaning far out of the palace window, Nicholas saw a great company of men marching two and two in the moonlight, led by a jolly fat trumpeter. They wore broad-brimmed, black sugar-loaf hats on their heads, queer broad-skirted coats with big buttons, and wide breeches which reached to their knees. The silver buckles on their shoes flashed at every step they took, and great clouds of smoke rose from the long pipes they were smoking.
"There's Oloffe the Dreamer!" called Nicholas. "I know it's Oloffe marching on ahead."
"And there's Anthony Van Corlear blowing his own trumpet!" cried Washington Irving, "and Hans Reinier Oothout with his long spy-glasses, and that's old Walter the Doubter, the first to sit in the Governor's chair, and William, the restless one, with the cocked hat on the back of his head, with his windmills, and here comes old Hard-Koppig Peet in his brimstone-colored breeches, carrying a fiddle tonight in place of his sword."
"St. Nicholas likes him best of all," said Nicholas.
"And so do I," exclaimed Washington Irving. "Oh Nicholas, what a Christmas celebration we will have when we open the doors for the Knickerbockers to come in!"
"Quick, Sir!" exclaimed Nicholas, "or the Knickerbockers may be gone."
"You are right, Nicholas, there isn't a second to lose," and taking him by the hand Washington Irving led Nicholas swiftly across the room and opened a door leading into a dimly-lighted corridor guarded by great bronze gates.
CHAPTER IX
BROWNIE'S BIG PARTY
THE LIONS' SHARE
"I MUST run round the corner and tell the Library Lions to be on the look-out for Nicholas tonight," said the Brownie to the cook as she swept the last crumb from the floor of Lucky's kitchen.
Thirty seconds later the Brownie stood in front of the first Library Lion. He was looking very handsome, for he was covered with snow.
"Merry Christmas, Leo Astor!" she called. "Be on the watch for a strange boy from Holland just before midnight. He's coming to my party."
The first Library Lion stared at the Brownie and burst into a hearty laugh.
"Why, Brownie," said he, "that must be the very boy my brother and I have been talking about. My brother saw him cross Forty-second Street and go up past the city flag-staff early this afternoon and I saw him go down Fifth Avenue. I've never seen a boy like him before. Why don't you give him a big party and invite everybody?"
In a great flutter of excitement the Brownie ran across the plaza in front of the Library. "Merry Christmas, Leo Lenox!" she called to the second Library Lion who was looking equally handsome, for he too was covered with snow. "Be on the watch for a strange boy from Holland tonight. He's coming to my party."
Leo Lenox looked very superior as he replied: "You mean Nicholas I suppose. He came across Forty-second Street early this evening just after the old Troll passed along. I've been sitting here ever since the Library was opened, Brownie, and I've seen millions of people go by–my brother and I review all the celebrities as you know–but never before have we seen anyone like Nicholas looking for Christmas.
"Why don't you give him a big party and invite everybody? Everybody who came down from the LENOX,” roared Leo Lenox.
"Everybody who came up from the ASTOR," roared Leo Astor from the other end of the plaza.
"If you Lions will only roar like that I can do anything," cried the Brownie. "Nicholas shall have the biggest and best party that ever was given. I'll go straight back to the Children's Room and send out the invitations."
Up the long flight of steps to the Fifth Avenue entrance of the Library scampered the Brownie. "Merry Christmas, dear Colonel Flanagan!" she called to the stately old Guard who was closing the great doors for the night. "I'm giving a Christmas party for Nicholas. Please come if you can."
And Flanagan turned with a knowing smile as he said: "When I heard Leo Astor roaring for all his old friends from the Astor to be invited I thought I might be wanted to count them."
Through the great marble halls and downstairs to the Children's Room rushed the Brownie.
"Merry Christmas, Lucie Lenox!" she called to the statue of the girl crossing a brook, which stands outside the door of the Children's Room. "It's high time you had some Christmas fun. Jump down from your pedestal and come to my party for Nicholas."
Lucie Lenox first stared, then she smiled as she balanced herself on the log, and jumping down she followed the Brownie into the Children's Room with a hop and a skip. She had not been inside the room for years.
"The Boy Wizard was here while you were gone, Brownie," called Aladdin as the door opened, "and when he heard us all talking about the party he wanted to come himself. I told him you had given everyone a number but he only said, 'Rub your lamp for me Aladdin,' and disappeared."
"Where did he go?" cried the Brownie. "The Boy Wizard is the very one to help me with the party for he knows every nook and corner of the Library."
"He's gone where he goes every Christmas Eve, behind the Blue Door with David Blaize. Shall I call him back, Brownie?"
"No, never call a boy back from anywhere," said the Brownie, "he will come back when he is ready."
"Brownie," whispered Hasan of Bassorah very confidentially as he leaned far out of the Book of Wonder Voyages, "I've never felt right about the magic cap and rod I took away from the two little brothers who were quarrelling over them. They belong to boys, not men. I've been looking ever since for the right kind of a boy to give them to and from all I have seen and heard of this Boy Wizard he answers my requirements. He was born in one of the city towers–and although he was brought to this Palace of Books to live when he was but two years old he is not in the bondage of books, he speaks the language of all the little animals, the birds, and the fishes, loves music, knows great men when he sees them, understands magic, and sets store by his dreams. Shall I give the Boy Wizard the cap and rod, Brownie?"
"Oh, yes, Hasan, and be quick about it for the Blue Door is opening and the Boy Wizard is coming back!"
And as Hasan handed the magic cap and rod to the astonished Boy Wizard, the Brownie shouted:
"Hail to our Master of Ceremonies. Where's the Troll? I appoint him Chief of Police with power to choose his own officers. Aladdin, you will be responsible for the illumination of the palace.
"Hindbad, you will not merely guard all the portals, you will, like any true porter, wake up the sleeping ones from time to time.
"Sindbad, you will act as interpreter to Nicholas for the guests from the Oriental Department. It will be lots of fun and you can tell stories in Arabic whenever you feel like it."
THE BOY WIZARD'S PLAN
"Let's plan the way the party is going to be," said the Boy Wizard, and he sat down at the head of the long table with a glass top under which the Mappe of Fairyland lies.
Just as the Brownie, the Troll, Aladdin, Sindbad, and Hindbad were taking their seats, Puss-in-Boots walked in.
"Come along, Puss! we need your advice," shouted the Brownie. Puss surveyed the group for a moment, and then, with a low bow to the Brownie, he drew up a chair opposite the Boy Wizard.
"The first thing to be done," said the Boy Wizard, "is to open the Stuart Gallery for the reception. You remember, Brownie, it wasn't half big enough to hold the people who came to welcome Marshal Joffre. Suppose I use my magic rod on those walls and turn the whole front of the building into one big room? It would be jollier."
"I should say so!" cried the Brownie. "And then think of the costumes! They could actually look them up in the Prints Room and get them right for once," and the Brownie shook with laughter.
"We'll hold the banquet in the big Reading Room, of course," continued the Boy Wizard. "But we must change the tables and run them the length of the room instead of across, then we can seat hundreds more at the banquet for we can shove them up close together and use the galleries all round the room."
"I trust, Sir," said Puss-in-Boots earnestly, "that you will leave untouched the wall which separates the Banquet Hall from that Hall of Ancestral Shades commonly known as the Genealogical Room."
The whole group nodded their heads in approval of this wise counsel, and turning to Puss-in-Boots the Boy Wizard said, "No wonder the Marquis of Carabas depends on you, Puss. The same advice holds good for the opposite wall, for behind it sleep the Shades of the Sachems of the Five Nations in the American History Room."
Sindbad the Sailor turned to the Brownie and whispered, "Do you think anybody will come out of that room? I'd like to see an American Indian. I've never seen one."
"I don't know about the others, Sindbad, but I think the Leatherstockings will be here," the Brownie whispered back.
The Boy Wizard rapped for order, sending a thrill through the Mappe of Fairyland. "We must get on with this party," he said. "The next thing is to do away with the glass partitions which now divide the big Reading Room into two parts. No desks will be needed for the banquet. You may use those indicators any way you want to Brownie."
"That's fine," cried the Brownie, "I'll turn them over to Palmer Cox's Brownies. They will attend to the banquet, of course."
"What do you all say to having the Brownies fix up some sports in the stacks?" suggested the Boy Wizard. "There's about two miles of good running track back there–upstairs and down–and a perfectly good chance to shoot the chutes out of those long windows into Bryant Park."
"Skaal, Boy Wizard!" shouted the Troll. "That stirs the blood of the Vikings. I'll set the Brownies right to work," and the Troll stumped off to give the Policeman Brownie his orders.
When he came back they were making plans for the second floor and Sinbad the Sailor was complaining that the Oriental Department was far too small a place for the crowds who would be sure to want to hear his stories. He needed the whole floor, he said, with all the dividing walls removed.
"Well, you can't expect to go beyond those bronze gates with your stories," said the Boy Wizard. "You can take the rest of the floor if you want it and make your own terms with the Scientists and the Economists. Some of them are sure to be on the roof anyway with their telescopes and spy-glasses. We don't care what you do, Sindbad, so long as you leave the balcony and the big stairways free for the musicians and dancers."
"It's going to be simply wonderful!" cried the Brownie. "I've wanted a ball in the Rotunda ever since the opening day of the Library. There was a grand procession down the stairway that day. I wished hard enough for a ball, but it didn't happen. You were only two years old, Boy Wizard, so of course it wasn't your fault."
"We shall certainly need more space for dancing," said the Boy Wizard. "I believe I will do away with the walls between the Rotunda and the Exhibition Room, but I'll leave that nice little room at the side for Cinderella and The Sleeping Beauty."
"Please don't remove the walls of the Periodicals Department. I have designs on that room myself," a merry voice called out. "I understand the room was originally planned for the children and it's high time they had their fun. I'll get up some charades and conundrums there and a game of Blind Man's Buff and you'd better let Mr. Pickwick and Master Simon have the rooms on the opposite side of the Rotunda."
There was a swish of silk skirts and a sound of quick-moving feet and out stepped Mary Mapes Dodge from the first volume of St. Nicholas Magazine, dragging Frank Stockton after her.
"We were just planning a fiftieth birthday celebration for St. Nicholas," said Mrs. Dodge, "when I heard the Troll give orders to the Policeman Brownie and I dropped everything to come to this party for Nicholas. My Hans Brinker and Gretel sent word that he was leaving Holland St. Nicholas Day. They begged me to be on the watch for him Christmas Eve and make him feel at home in New Amsterdam as they always call it. It's almost sixty years since Hans and his sister came for the first time, but they remember exactly how they felt," and turning to the Brownie she exclaimed, "You are a person after my own heart, Brownie, daring to give this big party for a strange little Dutch boy nobody knows! It takes courage and determination to give a big party and mix EVERYBODY up with EVERYBODY and give EVERYBODY a good time."
"That's what I told her!" said the Troll, "but I knew she could do it for real parties are in her blood. She's a Norwegian Brownie, I'll have all of you know, and one of her family gave famous parties for EVERYBODY at the Swedish Court in old King Oscar's time."
"The Library Lions thought of the big party first," said the Brownie modestly. "They roared so I felt I could do anything, but when the party begins I know I'll be scared."
"Not a bit of it, my dear," responded Mrs. Dodge heartily. "Why should you be? You are going to have the jolliest Christmas Eve you've ever had in your life and so is Nicholas and everybody else. Frank Stockton and I know just what to do with the old bores if any of them dare venture out of their hiding places. Frank Stockton drove them all out of the Queen's Museum."
"There are secret passages and deep wells and dark dungeons in this palace. Is it not so, Sir?" asked Puss-in-Boots, turning to Hindbad the Porter with a searching glance. Hindbad nodded, and leaning over he whispered in Puss's ear, "And Goblins in the High Attic!!!"
Puss twisted his whiskers with delight as he thought of mysterious disappearances.
"I've found just the man to put in charge of the Lost and Found," announced the Troll as he came ambling back, arm in arm with Captain Kidd. "He's an old New Yorker, he says. I've ordered a couple of Beef Eaters up to guard the Banquet Hall. The Captain says he can take care of any amount of valuables but what's troubling us both is the animals. What's to be done with them?"
"We must have a circus, of course," said the Boy Wizard. "Central Circulation is the place for that. I'll just raise the round glass roof and give them plenty of fresh air. Let's give the animals a chance to exhibit some of their work. I noticed all the other architects had a show at the Silver Jubilee in Grand Central Palace, but the City Beavers were not represented there. I'd like to have them arrange an Architectural Exhibition. Leave them alone while they're doing it, Troll. Beavers never work when under observation. I've watched them in Bronx Park by the hour. Let the Knickerbockers' Cows have one on City Planning. It's only fair, they laid out all the streets in the lower part of Manhattan on their way to pasture."
"I trust you will not limit the circus to the animals of Manhattan," remarked Puss-in-Boots.
"Of course we'll invite all animals who know how to perform," said the Boy Wizard, "but we naturally think of our own city animals first. The Monkeys of Jolliginki can show us something new in bridge building."
"Little Toomai will bring his Elephants and Rikki-Tikki will come with him," said Mrs. Dodge. "I assisted at their first appearance in America and we've been great friends ever since."
"Bring all the good performers you know, Mrs. Dodge," said the Boy Wizard. "How about those bell-ringing cats from Brighton? Palmer Cox's Brownies will bring the Cheerful Cats. I'll try to secure Mr. Frost as Ring-master. He can get more fun out of B'rer Rabbit and B'rer Fox and B'rer B'ar than anybody else can. Randolph Caldecott is the man for the horses. How would it do to match a few English horses against some of your swift Arabians, Hindbad? After the banquet I'll set Yellow Dog Dingo chasing Old Man Kangaroo for a wind-up."
"It sounds like a very good circus," said the Troll. "I may even step into the ring myself if there are to be any clowns. Transformations are in my blood."
"Whoever heard of a circus without clowns?" cried the Boy Wizard. "Of course, Dan Rice will bring his trained pig and George Fox will play Humpty Dumpty down here, even if they make him do it again at the Pantomime, and the first clown who ever said "Whoa January!" will bring his mule. There'll be plenty of clowns in the ring all the time."
"Any side shows?" asked Captain Kidd.
"Dr. Dolittle's Pushmi-Pullyu will naturally be one of the chief attractions," said the Boy Wizard. "Mr. Barnum will enjoy that if he drops in. He was always looking for something of the kind for his own circus.
"We must order the circus posters printed right away and the dance orders. Will you kindly attend to that, Puss? You will find the Printing Office on this floor. Will you present our compliments to the Marquis of Carabas and ask him to receive the Press Representatives in the Newspaper Room? To save their time, I am opening a secret passage leading into Bryant Park tonight. Give them safe conduct, Hindbad."
With a low bow to the Boy Wizard and a glance at Hindbad, Puss withdrew to execute these important commissions, and the Brownie ran after him to whisper another, of a confidential nature.
THE DUCHESS ARRIVES
As they passed through the picture-book room, there stood Lucie Lenox on tiptoe smiling away, just as the Brownie had left her.
"Can't you do anything but smile and balance yourself, Lucie Lenox?" called the Brownie.
Lucie Lenox made no reply. She kept on smiling and she kept on standing on tiptoe. She was listening with all her ears to a thin sharp voice from the wall.
"I hope all this means something more than another pink rose for me, Lucie Lenox. I'm a little tired of just sitting here keeping anniversaries and looking on at parties. I'd like to give a party of my own. I used to give lovely ones. I lived in a very lively age, but I'm treated as if I had no life left in me. Pink roses are all very well in their place, but I've had far too many since I came here."
"Why, Duchess," cried the Brownie. "Why didn't you tell me before how you felt?"
"Of course you shall give a party of your own. Take the Children's Room and do whatever you please here. We've made no plans for it tonight."
"Then the Cries of London shall be heard again! I'll give an Eighteenth Century fête with a masked ball to follow. Lucie Lenox, who appears to know how to do nothing except smile and balance on a log of wood, shall see a bit of life after my own heart."
"Make way for our Duchess!" called the Boy Wizard, and he rapped sharply three times on the gold frame which held the picture of the Duchess. Down stepped a stately little figure in a party dress of the Eighteenth Century.
Lucie Lenox was so surprised she nearly lost her balance.
"I'll wake up the London Criers and the rest of them and then we will take ourselves off and you shall have your own party any way you please, Duchess." One after another the Boy Wizard touched the pictures which hung on either side of the Duchess; Down jumped the Orange Woman with her barrow of oranges; Down jumped the little Match Girl with her matches, the Scissors Grinder, and all the rest, filling the room with the old London Street Cries, which were sweet music in the Duchess's ears.
Then he rapped sharply on the fast-locked bookcases and out trooped hundreds of little Kate Greenaway girls, who curtsied gravely to the Duchess and then ran off to play with John Newbery's little boys. Out came ballad singers and story-tellers, with harps and fiddles and flutes, who hailed Robin Hood and Maid Marian with delight and implored Little John for a song.
"We'll have all the Merry Men down!" cried the Boy Wizard, and running across the room he struck one after another of the bright pictures of Robin Hood's band.
Last of all he rapped on the Mappe of Fairyland. Down from the wall of Mother Goose Village jumped Humpty Dumpty, followed by Simple Simon, Little Bo Peep and all the others.
Faster and faster they came. Suddenly a strange, dark shape appeared, at the sight of which the Boy Wizard himself trembled and turned pale.
"Lay down your cap and pick up the rod or you'll have the place full of Banshees!" thundered Hasan.
The Boy Wizard obeyed, looking very sheepish, for he had carelessly laid the rod down across the dark end of the Mappe of Fairyland, and left it lying there. He promised not to let it out of his hands again.
"Au revoir, Duchess," he said very politely. "I didn't mean to stir up the Banshees. Policeman Troll and Captain Kidd will remove all objectionable characters at your command. Those Bohemian Devils in the far corner are perfectly harmless you'll find. They're different from other devils. Ask Katcha to tell you her story about them," the Boy Wizard called back as he passed out of the room attended by Aladdin and Hindbad.
"I like variety at my parties," said the Duchess. "Please don't take away all the Pirates and Buccaneers and Smugglers. Their racy English speech is refreshing after my long seclusion," and the Duchess placed her small hand in Captain Kidd's.
"They naturally come and go, Duchess. They always have, but I'll do my best to keep some of 'em around all the evening."
"Well, Captain, it's time we gave the Palace a final inspection before the party begins," said the Troll. "We will return later to render any service you may command, Duchess."
The Duchess dropped a charming curtsey and catching Lucie Lenox by the hand, she danced lightly out across the room calling; "Take partners all for Sir Roger de Coverley!"
One old dance followed another and before Lucie Lenox knew what she was doing, she was dancing a minuet in perfect time.
The Duchess was radiant when presented with a bunch of deep red roses, a clock, and a looking-glass as favors in a cotillion, for now she knew she could give a party in any age.
"I don't want a party of my own after all, Brownie. I would like to join in your big party for Nicholas."
"We'd love to have you, Duchess," cried the Brownie, "Nicholas is sure to come here first of all."
"It's nearly midnight by my clock now," said the Duchess.
"The clock in the Traffic Tower is striking and the doors and windows are all closing tight and Nicholas hasn't come! Nicholas hasn't come! Oh, Duchess, what shall I do? What shall I do? The big party can't begin without Nicholas. I'll never dare speak to the Lions again if he doesn't come."
"Don't get panicky, Brownie. Go and ask Mrs. Dodge what to do. She's sure to know. I will sit right here in the window seat and watch for Nicholas. If he comes this way I'll send Lucie Lenox to spread the news."
ALADDIN LIGHTS UP
Up through the great marble palace ran Aladdin with his magic lamp.
From Engine Room to Banquet Hall he hung crystal lanterns and rainbow lights and before the doorways he set out great golden candlesticks. Then handing a lighted torch to each of the Forty Thieves, he bade them march on ahead while he strung long chains of twinkling lights from shelf to shelf of the seven floors of the book-stacks.
"What's to be done with all the Nations when you've finished lighting up," inquired Sindbad who was strolling idly down one of the long paths between the book-stacks. "I've been from top to bottom and there's every nation under the sun here. Shall I tell them some of my stories, Aladdin?"
"You will do nothing of the kind, Sindbad," commanded the Boy Wizard. "Leave them alone. Those who want to come to the party for Nicholas will come. Those who don't will stay right where they are."
"Skaal, Boy Wizard!" shouted the Troll. "That's the kind of a party I like."
"So do I," said Captain Kidd. "I'm all for freedom on land or sea. Let all lost property circulate is what I say. I've been watching Aladdin's men, sir, and I'll guarantee to keep all property in motion if I can engage them as assistants."
"The Forty Thieves are yours to command, Captain," said the Boy Wizard. "It's the first sensible plan I ever heard of for taking care of lost property. The walls are all down and I'm on my way now to see about the music for the party."
"Don't forget the Dutch led the world in music once upon a time," called Mrs. Dodge, who was hurrying up a flight of back stairs after a secret conference with Palmer Cox's Brownies.
"Ask for the March of the Dwarfs for me," shouted the Troll. "I knew Grieg personally."
"I'd like a bit of the Rhine Gold," said Captain Kidd.
"You'll not deny a poor sailor his hornpipe, I hope," ventured Sindbad.
"It would be a rare pleasure to me to hear 'au clair de la lune' well sung," remarked Puss-in-Boots. "The Marquis of Carabas is devoted to our old French chansons."
"Ask for the Nutcracker! the Nutcracker! Tschaikovsky's Nutcracker!" cried the Brownie. "You like fairy music as much as I do, Boy Wizard, couldn't we have Oberon too?"
But the Boy Wizard had already disappeared inside the Music Room. When he came back he was beating time with his magic rod to a tune he'd left behind him.
"Old King Cole will take charge of the music in the Banquet Hall," he answered, "and the Wooden Soldiers have agreed to march as soon as the party begins. It must be midnight now, Hindbad."
WHERE'S NICHOLAS?
"The clock on the Traffic Tower has struck twelve and Nicholas hasn't come yet. Where do you suppose he can be, Mrs. Dodge?" said the Brownie anxiously, as she stood in the doorway of the Periodicals Room.
The St. Nicholas boys and girls were having such a good time among themselves that Mrs. Dodge slipped away to reassure the Brownie, who was trembling with excitement from head to foot.
"Have you looked for Nicholas upstairs?" asked Mrs. Dodge.
"Why, no!" said the Brownie. "I thought he would come back the same way."
"Boys often come back different ways," said Mrs. Dodge, setting a firm foot on the marble stair. "Come with me, Brownie, I know Nicholas will keep his promise."
Long before she reached the top stair, the Brownie was her own gay little self again. Halfway up Mrs. Dodge stood still for a moment listening to the voices of hundreds of St. Nicholas boys and girls floating up through the Rotunda.
"They are trying to tell Frank Stockton which of his stories they like best," she said with a smile. "They really don't know themselves, but if they can agree upon one he has promised to tell it again."
At the head of the stairway stood the Boy Wizard.
"Everything is ready, Brownie. It's past midnight. Where's Nicholas?" he demanded in a stern voice.
THE PARTY BEGINS
"Nicholas is coming, Nicholas is coming," called Mrs. Dodge reassuringly, and at that very moment the great bronze gates swung wide open. Out walked Nicholas with a strange young man.
"Welcome to New Amsterdam, dear Nicholas!" cried Mrs. Dodge. "The St. Nicholas boys and girls are all waiting downstairs to wish you Merry Christmas, and here's Brownie who was afraid you were lost. I knew you would turn up and I believe I can guess just how you came," said Mrs. Dodge with a twinkle. "Down the chimney with old St. Nicholas I'll be bound!"
Nicholas's eyes danced as Mrs. Dodge pinned a sprig of holly on his jacket.
"How would you like to be tall tonight?" whispered the Boy Wizard. "You can see more."
"It would be lots of fun," said Nicholas.
"When the party begins I'll touch you up with my magic rod," signalled the Boy Wizard.
Just then Sindbad walked out from the Oriental Department accompanied by Robinson Crusoe with his dog and parrot.
"My oldest friends!" cried the strange young man giving one hand to Sindbad and the other to Robinson Crusoe. "Do you remember me, Sindbad?"
"Do I remember you, Washington Irving? Who of us story-tellers will ever forget your face as you sat listening to our stories for the first time? Why you even cared enough about us to learn a little Arabic. That went straight to our hearts," and Sindbad wept with joy, for now he knew that he was sure of a wonderful audience for his stories.
"Washington Irving!" exclaimed Mrs. Dodge. "Can it be possible? Are you sure it is Washington Irving, Nicholas?"
And Nicholas, looking up at Washington Irving as he stood under one of the crystal lanterns saw, instead of the old man he had found asleep by the fire, a young man with merry eyes who looked no older than John Moon.
"It surely is Washington Irving. I know it is," said Nicholas, "but I don't know what's happened to him, Mrs. Dodge."
Just then came a loud THUMP! THUMP! THUMP! on the great bronze doors below.
"Who's there?" demanded the Boy Wizard.
"It's the Knickerbockers! The Knickerbockers are coming!" cried Washington Irving. "I was on my way down to open the doors for the Knickerbockers!"
"You will permit Hindbad and me to throw wide our portals," said the Boy Wizard, "and do you, President Irving of the Astor Library, receive the Knickerbockers with solemnity among its treasures now assembled in the Stuart Gallery.
"Aladdin and Sindbad, conduct Mr. Irving and Nicholas to the Reception Hall.
"Puss, will you give an arm to Mrs. Dodge and the Brownie?"
Touching Nicholas gently with his magic rod, the Boy Wizard put on his cap and disappeared in the Rotunda below.
As the great doors swung open, the musicians in the gallery above struck up the March of the Wooden Soldiers. Out from the Slavonic Division marched the Wooden Soldiers, and as the long procession of Knickerbockers came up the stairway two and two, the Wooden Soldiers stood at attention on the landing, while the Knickerbockers took breath for the second stairway.
Then from every nook and corner of the great Palace the guests came trooping forth to the party. Nearly everybody had wanted to come as soon as they heard the Boy Wizard say they didn't have to come.
While Washington Irving and Nicholas were receiving the Knickerbockers, Mrs. Dodge and the Brownie, with the able assistance of Puss, were rapidly inspecting the costumes of the guests who passed in and out of the Prints Room in a kind of maze.
Everybody knew their friends by their clothes, even when they looked very different in the face, and they rushed to greet one another with shouts of "Merry Christmas!"
"Oyez! Oyez! Oyez! The Banquet is now ready!" called the two Beef Eaters, and in no time at all Palmer Cox's resourceful Brownies had found a seat for every guest.
The Troll suggested to Robinson Crusoe that he send his dog and parrot down to the circus, but he absolutely refused to be parted from them.
"Don't excite him, old man," whispered Captain Kidd. "I'll attend to that later on. They all want to take their property in with them but they're certain to forget it as soon as ever they begin to eat. Then I'll set the Forty Thieves to work,” he murmured, just as a little girl passed into the Banquet Hall, her arm round the neck of a darling little Fawn.
"You're not to lay hands on Alice's Fawn," said the Boy Wizard. "She's sent all her other animals down to the circus and she's got away from the Duchess and the Red Queen and the White Queen and all of them. Leave her in peace. I've told her she could keep the Fawn with her as long as she likes and David Blaize says he'll teach her to fly if she wants to. Nils Holgerssen and Peter Pan are going to fly at the ball instead of dancing and they want others to join them. I believe I'll try it myself," said the Boy Wizard. "I've always wanted to fly."
No sooner had he uttered the words than the Boy Wizard rose up over the great Banquet Hall–from one end to the other he flew and the sight he saw was one to delight the eyes and heart of any Master of Ceremonies.
Thousands of guests had been served immediately with exactly what they wanted to eat and an atmosphere of absolute satisfaction and festivity pervaded the great hall. Everybody who wanted to smoke was smoking, from old King Cole in the gallery to the Leatherstockings in the far corner. Great wreaths of smoke rose from Oloffe Van Kortlandt's long pipe as he sat with Washington Irving, Sindbad and Nicholas at the table next the Genealogical Room. The guests at the other tables were changing places whenever they felt like it for they all wanted to get better acquainted with the Knickerbockers.
The Forty Thieves were deftly removing pearl necklaces, diamond tiaras, gold anklets and jewelled daggers, and the Brownies were lending them a hand with the windmills, the cats, dogs, parrots and other pets from which the guests had refused to be separated at the door. Suddenly, the door behind Nicholas opened, and out stalked Baron Münchhausen with a large folio under his arm.
"Merry Christmas, Münchhausen!" called Washington Irving. "Another book of your delightful travels, I see. Have a seat beside Sindbad."
"Alas, no!" said the Baron, with a deep bow, "I travel no longer. I haunt yon chamber and my new book is called 'Observations of the Hunt.' The hunting of Ancestors I've discovered is attended by far more perils and wonders than I ever encountered on my travels," and the Baron sat heavily down.
At this the Three Jovial Huntsmen in the gallery above wound their horns and shouted: "Look'ee there! He knows naught aboot hunting!" and they burst into shouts of laughter.
"Well! I see nothing in all that to laugh about," declared old Walter, the Doubter, taking his long Turkish pipe from his mouth and laying it on the table. "I have my doubts about the matter."
No sooner did the Thief of Robin's Castle spy the valuable pipe wrought with jasmine and amber, than he clapped it into his pochette and was off with it before the old Doubter had finished expressing his first doubt.
"Who are those strange-looking folks, Hans?" asked Peter Stuyvesant. And raising his long spy-glasses, Hans Reinier Oothout replied. "They appear to be New Englanders, Sir."
"What do they mean by coming to a New York Christmas party?" asked the old Governor testily. "They never kept Christmas in the old days."
"Times have changed, Governor," said Captain Kidd. "The New Englanders have been strong for Christmas ever since the Peterkins began to take advice from the Lady from Philadelphia. They have their Christmas trees and hang up their stockings just like other folks. Agamemnon Peterkin appears to want to speak to me, Sir," and Captain Kidd advanced across the Banquet Hall with his cutlass at his side.
Now Agamemnon Peterkin had invented a wonderful key which would open anything from a small hand bag to a big front door, and hearing that Captain Kidd was in charge of the Lost and Found at Brownie's Big Party, he thought he might be able to sell him this patent key. But Captain Kidd shook his head very decidedly when Agamemnon showed him the key and began to explain how many different kinds of locks it would unlock.
"It's no kind of use talking to me about locks and keys," he said. "I bury my valuables, I always have. I never lock 'em up."
So Agamemnon put the key back into his vest pocket and sat down at a table with his father and mother, Elizabeth Eliza, Solomon John and the Little Boys. The Peterkins were all wearing the costumes they had worn at the Carnival of Authors in Boston and they naturally attracted a good deal of attention.
"It's a wonderful party," said the Boy Wizard to himself as he hovered above a table of gay Merrylanders, who were drinking the health of the Knickerbockers in apple toddy and mint juleps.
Suddenly strange rumbling sounds like distant thunder were heard. The Banquet Hall shook from end to end and the guests leaped to their feet in terror. Down flew the Boy Wizard, and seizing Antony Van Corlear's trumpet from the hand of the Master Thief, he blew a loud blast and bade them all sit down again.
"No cause for alarm," he said. "It's only Hendrick Hudson's men bowling in the new subway."
Whereupon the Knickerbockers settled back in their chairs with broad smiles of contentment.
"So long as Hendrick Hudson and the crew of the Half Moon keep vigil, all's well with New Amsterdam," said Washington Irving. "Why, Rip Van Winkle!" he called delightedly as a strange old man in rags and tatters appeared at the head of the stairs. "Welcome to our party for Nicholas! My very dear friend Rip Van Winkle, Nicholas."
"I'm not myself," said the strange old man, staring about in astonishment. "I'm somebody else," and, as his eyes lighted upon Joseph Jefferson he muttered: "That's me yonder, no, that's somebody else got into my shoes–I was myself last night but I fell asleep on the mountain, but they've changed my gun and everything's changed and I'm changed and I can't tell what's my name or who I am."
Washington Irving beckoned to Hindbad. "Seat him at the table with the Seven Sleepers and the Sleeping Beauty, Hindbad, and let him have a short nap, but be sure to wake them all up for the Pantomine. Joseph Jefferson has promised to give a scene from Rip Van Winkle. You saw, Nicholas, how even Rip thought Joe Jefferson was himself. He will make everybody else think so, he's such a remarkable actor."
Nicholas beamed and nodded. He liked being tall enough to see how everybody looked at a banquet, and he was having a wonderful time listening to the stories Oloffe the Dreamer and Sindbad the Sailor were telling of their dreams and their travels.
Baron Münchhausen had quite recovered his spirits in the genial atmosphere of the Banquet Hall and he was telling the most marvellous story he had ever told in his life. Even Sindbad looked surprised.
The music grew livelier and livelier every minute, and the Brownies having cleared a space all round the room, the guests left their tables to dance jigs, hornpipes, and reels whenever they felt inclined.
"A Wassail, a Wassail!" came a song from below.
"Master Simon, as I'm alive!" cried Washington Irving. And a "tight brisk little man with a nose shaped like the bill of a parrot" danced lightly up the stairs. After him, to the tune of "Haste to the Wedding" came the Morris Dancers with sticks and ribbons and bells, then came Jack-in-the-Green, St. George–with his Dragon, of course–then, to the tune of "Jockey to the Fair," came the gay Hobby Horse. After that Robin Hood with all his Merry Men, singing: "A-Nutting we will go–a-nutting we will go." Then came Mother Goose with Little Red Riding Hood, and last of all, Charles Dickens with Joe Grimaldi, the greatest of all the clowns.
"My Joe's playing Mother Goose tonight," said Dickens.
"And our Joe's playing Rip Van Winkle," said Washington Irving. "What a Pantomine!"
Down the wide stairway to the hall in the Rotunda floated Cinderella on the arm of Cuchulain. And after them came everybody you know and many more beside.
The ball was at its height when Charles Dickens appeared, dancing a polka with a charming little girl with dark eyes and waving brown curls.
"Who is she? She's not an English child," said Washington Irving.
"It's Kate Douglas Wiggin," replied Mrs. Dodge. "She's from New England. I know her very well. She is one of my own St. Nicholas girls and she loves Charles Dickens best of all.”
The Pantomine was over, but the circus was still in full swing when the Boy Wizard signalled to Nicholas to follow him. "Would you like to see the Dungeons?" he whispered.
Nicholas nodded his head.
"Then I'll have to make you small again," and the Boy Wizard touched Nicholas with his rod.
Down, down, down into the very depths of the Palace they went and they saw many strange sights and heard many strange sounds down there. Then up through the ghostly white book-stacks they crept. The lights had all burned out and they could hear a fluttering, rustling sound, like the wind stirring autumn leaves. A sharp crack like a pistol shot made Nicholas jump.
"That's nothing," said the Boy Wizard. "They often do that on other nights than Christmas Eve. Listen, Nicholas, listen!" he whispered. "All the Little Fellows have come out for their fun now." And all at once a silvery, shimmering fairy light shone about them, and from far, far away came the sound of exquisite music. "It's the 'Elfin Song,'" said the Boy Wizard. "They must be having their party down in the Rotunda."
Touching a heavy bronze door with his rod, they walked out of the book-stacks between two rows of marble statues to the musician's gallery.
It was silent and deserted, but up from the great Rotunda floated the most lovely fairy music and as Nicholas and the Boy Wizard leaned far out over the balcony they could see hundreds of fairies and elves dancing down the stairways through the Rotunda, which looked like Fairyland itself, with a throne for the Queen at one end.
"They are singing the going home song," said Washington Irving, as he stopped to watch the fairies with them on his way back through the bronze gates. "Come often to the Fairy Mountains, Nicholas. I'll always be waiting for you there."
"I'll come. I'll surely come," said Nicholas. "Leave your window open for me!"
"It's high time the St. Nicholas boys and girls were putting on their caps and tippets," said Mrs. Dodge, hurrying along to the Periodicals Room.
"It's been a wonderful party, Brownie! Good night, Nicholas, dear boy. I'll be with you always on St. Nicholas Eve, remember. Good night, dear Washington Irving, you have given my boys and girls the best time they ever had in their lives."
"Wait a minute, Mrs. Dodge," said the Boy Wizard. "It's time for the Knickerbocker Cock to crow. Hindbad, throw wide the portals!"
Through the wide-open doorway came a wheezing, whirring, spluttering, rasping, kickering sound and then, "Cock-a-a-a-doodle-doo! Cock-a-d-o-o-odle-doo! Cock-a-doodle-doo!!" crowed the Knickerbocker Cock.
At the first call of their own Cock, up from the circus and the Duchess's fête raced the Knickerbockers like schoolboys, through the marble halls, downstairs, and out through the wide-open doors waving sugar-loaf hats, windmills, trumpets, spy-glasses, gold-headed canes and long pipes.
"A jolly lot I call them!" said the Boy Wizard. "They were the life of the party after you set them going, Mr. Irving."
"Why do they go off in such a hurry?" asked Nicholas. "I wanted to say good night to Oloffe."
"Too late for good nights," said the Boy Wizard. "It's morning now all over the world. The Knickerbockers have only just begun their fun, Nicholas. Major Putnam is giving them a Christmas breakfast in the country, and he sent word the old sleighs would be waiting in front of their own Town House at first cock-crow. He's sending them all up to Albany on a fleet of ice boats for New Year's. They're off! Listen to those old sleigh bells, Nicholas. There's Christmas music for you!"
As the last Knickerbocker sleigh rounded the corner of Forty-fifth Street and dashed up Fifth Avenue, clear and shrill and strong came another "Cock-a-doodle-doo! Cock-a-doodle-doo! I'm-a-Knickerbocker-too!"
"There goes the Heckscher Cock! Three Centuries gone and the Party's over!" called the Boy Wizard.
CHAPTER X
A CHRISTMAS SAIL TO RICHMOND
WHEN Nicholas opened his eyes on Christmas morning the Troll called down from the Christmas tree:
"Skaal, Nicholas! Take a look at your stockings!"
Nicholas jumped up and ran over to the fireplace. Two little red stockings, stuffed with presents, were hanging there. With one in each hand he sprang back into bed again and pulled out, first of all, a pair of Indian moccasins of soft brown leather. Nicholas put on the moccasins. Next came a pair of skates, which were just a fit, a new kind of top, another little red leather book, a large drawing-book, lots of blue and yellow pencils, a pencil sharpener, a knife with two blades, a watch, a set of fishing tackle, a baseball, a football, and a spy-glass. Down in the heel of each stocking he found a red apple with nuts all round it and in the toe of one was a shiny dime and a nickel. In the toe of the other, a bright copper penny and a Peter Rabbit just big enough to fit under his thumb.
"It's a luck charm!" cried Nicholas. "This Peter Rabbit will bring me luck, old Giant."
"The Night before Christmas Country is a good place to wake up in Christmas morning," called the Troll. "I'm coming down!" And the Troll gave a leap from the Christmas tree and landed right in the midst of all the presents.
Just then the door of the Christmas Room opened and in came Joe Star carrying an electric grill with tiny sausages sizzling on it.
"Joyeux Noël, Nicolas! you and the Old Man must be about ready for breakfast. Here's our Dutch oven. Let's find that hamper!"
Nicholas hopped up to give Joe Star a hand with the hamper. They dragged it over to the window where the wishing-table stood with the coffee bubbling up from one glass globe into another, and they were diving down under the sign when Ann Caraway walked in with a pot of white heather.
"Merry Christmas, everybody!" she called. "I've had the most wonderful dream. If it comes true I'll tell you what it was all about. I found this white heather growing outside my door. It's sure to bring luck, Nicholas."
"See my luck charm, Ann Caraway," cried Nicholas holding up his Peter Rabbit, "and all these lovely presents!"
Ann Caraway stopped to admire the presents and then emptying the jar of cream into a bowl of porridge for the Troll she set it under the Christmas tree. When she came back to the wishing-table Nicholas and Joe Star were opening the packages beside their plates.
"Your turn first, Joe Star," said Nicholas. "I've had lots of presents in my stockings already."
So Joe Star untied the sailor's knot of rope with which the odd-shaped parcel was tied, and there stood a small chest with curious markings on it. Raising the cover, he took from it two blue cups and saucers, two plates, a bowl, and a platter with Chinese pictures all over them. In the bottom of the chest he found some old silver forks and teaspoons marked with an S and a B and a card on which was printed:
Joe Star's Travelling Christmas Chest. Warranted strong enough to preserve the Owner from Homesickness on Land or Sea and Deep enough to hold as many Doubloons and Pieces-of-Eight as he can carry.
"That's a fine present, Joe Star!" exclaimed Nicholas.
"It can't be beat, Nicholas, old boy! Now let's see what you have yourself."
Nicholas untied a square package and opened a box, only to find another box, and another, and another, until he had opened ten boxes. In the last one of all he found an electric flash-light and underneath it, on a card addressed to Nicholas Knickerbocker, he read:
I'm charged with the light of Liberty,
I flash on Land and I flash on Sea,
So take me, dear Nicholas, wherever you roam,
And you'll always find welcome and a feeling of Home.
"We can go anywhere with your Travelling Chest and my Flash-light, can't we, Joe Star," exclaimed Nicholas.
"We surely can, Nicholas, old boy. I'll get into my knickerbockers and take my field-glasses and we'll start right off for a Christmas sail as soon as the Postman comes."
"There's the Postman's whistle now!" cried Ann Caraway and downstairs she rushed, followed by the two boys, to wish the Postman, Merry Christmas.
"It's a fine morning for a sleigh-ride round Central Park," suggested the Postman, as he filled their hands with letters and packages. "The old sleigh is out, I hear, and everybody who got a sled for Christmas is having a slide."
"The best Christmas fun of all!" exclaimed Ann Caraway. "We'll go for a sleigh-ride first and a sail afterward and pretend we're back in Maine, Joe."
But Joe Star had vanished in pursuit of his knickerbockers and field-glasses.
"Aren't you coming, old Giant?" asked Nicholas.
"Not today. I'm too sleepy," replied the Troll. " I'll guard the letters and packages. There may be gold inside."
"Your spy-glasses are like Admiral Farragut's, Joe Star," said Nicholas, "but what's the use of them on a sleigh-ride?"
"No use at all, Nicholas, old boy, but I always take them when I go on the water for I want to know what the captain thinks before he thinks it."
"I believe I'll take mine along, too," said Nicholas, "and I'd like to take my skates. Is there any ice in Central Park, Ann Caraway?"
"Lakes of it, Nicholas. Take your skates by all means. We'll leave a branch of pine and a sprig of white heather as we pass Kate Douglas Wiggin's door. She lives close to Central Park in winter and in summer she lives by the Saco River in Maine."
The old sleigh with its jingling bells and buffalo robes was waiting at the Fifty-ninth Street entrance to Central Park.
Ann Caraway and Joe Star climbed into the back seat and buried their feet in the straw which covered the sleigh bottom. Nicholas jumped up beside the driver on the front seat.
Off started the old red horse at a lively trot and the driver, seeing that Nicholas was a stranger, gave him a longer ride than usual, stopped to speak to the Mounted Policeman, and again at the Sheepfold to see Peggy, a dog he knew very well.
Hundreds of boys and girls in gay new caps and mittens and sweaters were coasting and skating all over the Park. Nicholas had never seen a Flexible Flier before and he was eager for a slide, but Joe Star said, "Better wait and have your first slide with Ben in Maine."
The old sleigh left them near the Sail Boat Lake, and while Nicholas was trying on his new skates Joe Star made lots of snowballs and they had a grand fight before they left the Park.
On the way down to Staten Island Ferry they stopped at the Oyster Bar in the Grand Central Station where they all sat on high stools and watched the cooks in white suits inviting oysters of all sizes to come out of their shells and be cooked in little silver dishes holding just enough for one person at a time.
"Oysters-or-clams-plain-half-cream-or- pan-roast?" said one of the cooks to Nicholas, speaking very fast.
"Pan-roast," said Nicholas without a moment's hesitation. "It sounds good and I'd like to see how it's done. This is one of the jolliest places I've ever seen, Ann Caraway."
"They're roasting and broiling and stewing just the way the Knickerbockers did when they came to Manhattan with Oloffe, Nicholas," said Joe Star. "They've been doing it right along for three hundred years."
The big station was filled with Christmas travellers bringing holly wreaths from the South and fragrant balsam boughs from the Adirondack Mountains and the Red Caps were hurrying back and forth with bags, suitcases, golf sticks, snowshoes and skates.
"It's more like a cathedral than a railway station," said Nicholas. "I love that blue sky over the platform, Ann Caraway. It looks like the real sky with Orion and the Milky Way and all the gold stars twinkling up there."
"The Grand Central is beautiful any day," said Ann Caraway, "but I wouldn't miss seeing it at Christmas time for anything in the world.
"There's an art gallery upstairs, Nicholas, and long streets of little shops each side of the ticket offices where you can buy anything you've forgotten on your way to the train. Some day we'll come exploring but we must go for our sail now while the sun is still high."
Down the harbor on that lovely Christmas afternoon sailed the Staten Island ferry-boat with Nicholas, Joe Star and Ann Caraway on the upper deck all by themselves. The water was as blue as the sky and the gulls were flying over their heads. With their spy-glasses Nicholas and Joe Star saw everything there is to see in New York Harbor.
"Staten Island is bigger than Manhattan, Nicholas, old boy," said Joe Star. "There's a marvellous view from those heights. Some day we'll climb up there but I'm all for the ship today."
"Tell me about the Arizona, Joe Star. What did you do on that ship?"
Joe was looking straight out to sea through his spy-glasses, and not until the ferry-boat had made her Staten Island pier and was putting back across the bay did he make any reply. Then he put up his spy-glasses and said, "Come along up in the bow, Nicholas, and I'll tell you about one time when I was up river on the Arizona with an old Sea Dog and we took the Ship to the Navy Yard. Down the river we went at half tide with the Captain nearly crazy because the Pilot was in command but the old man was still responsible for his ship. The river was chock-a-block with all manner of tugs and smacks and ferries. They kept me busy at the whistle. I was a sort of Whistle-Boy–the junior officer of the deck.
"We played checkers with the other ships all the way down river and rounded the Battery in style–and then, Nicholas, the battle began. The old Pilot pulled out a whistle and a whole flock of little tugs came alongside and buried their noses to her sides like puffing bull pups. They shunted us into the Navy Yard to the tune of the Pilot's whistle and when her prow crossed the line of the dock the Captain sighed his relief because then his ship belonged to the Captain of the Yard. And I tell you, Nicholas, that being Whistle Boy was a hard job," said Joe Star, with a twinkle in his eye.
"That's a good story, Joe Star," said Nicholas. "I could see the Arizona coming straight down North River. Tell another. Did you ever see the Arizona, Ann Caraway?"
"Often," replied Ann Caraway. "I once had Fourth of July dinner with the Whistle Boy when she was in drydock. We're having our Christmas dinner at the Lafayette, Nicholas, and Joe Star must save the rest of his stories to tell us there. Let's watch for Liberty to light her torch."
And as Liberty flashed her signal, the lights appeared in one high tower after another and ran twinkling across Brooklyn Bridge, turning ferry-boats and trolley cars into big glow-worms and fireflies. Then as the harbor grew darker and darker and more and more mysterious, suddenly a soft radiant light sprang up from Liberty's feet and the whole statue stood bathed in light from head to foot.
"Does Liberty keep all that light for Christmas, Ann Caraway?" he asked.
"No, she stands in it every night of the year," replied Ann Caraway. "I come to see her often at lighting-up time and each time seems more wonderful than the last."
"I wish John Moon was here," said Nicholas. "We can see things from the ferry-boat we couldn't see from Battery Park. Do you know John Moon, Joe Star?"
"Yes, I know him very well, Nicholas, old boy. Come here and I'll tell you something about him," and arm in arm with Nicholas Joe Star leaned over the rail and said in a very low voice, "John Moon is coming to our dinner party at the Lafayette. Don't tell Ann Caraway. We want to surprise her."
Nicholas nudged Joe Star, and then he said loud enough for Ann Caraway to hear, "Where's the Lafayette, Joe Star? It isn't on my map."
"Behind the old Brevoort, near Washington Square," replied Joe Star. "They have the same cook, I believe. It's a festive place for a Christmas dinner. People come from all over the world. I think you'll like it, Nicholas. I do and so does Ann Caraway."
The Lafayette looked very festive that night. There were holly wreaths in the many windows on both sides of the room and a row of gay flower boxes ran up and down the middle. The room had a high part and a low part, with a flight of steps between. Joe Star had engaged a table in the high part next to the balcony rail.
"I hope there's been no mistake," he said to Ann Caraway, "but some one is already seated at our table."
Half-way across the room, Ann Caraway recognized John Moon. "See who's there, Nicholas," she cried and then she saw that Nicholas and Joe Star were both laughing and signalling to John Moon, who was now standing and signalling back. The old French waiter seemed to be in the secret too for he was smiling and smiling as he stood behind Ann Caraway's chair. There was a bunch of purple and gold pansies at her plate and a silver whistle for Nicholas.
"How do you like my surprise party, chère tante?" said Joe Star. "You gave me one last night, remember."
"I think it's the jolliest Christmas dinner party in all Manhattan," said Ann Caraway.
Soon every table was filled with gay Christmas guests from many lands and they were talking and laughing in so many strange languages that Nicholas nearly forgot to eat his Christmas dinner.
"They must be speaking in all languages, John Moon," he said, as he sat watching the flashing jewels and gorgeous colors of the ladies' dresses. "Do these people come from all the countries in the world, Joe Star?"
"Let's ask the waiter," said Joe Star. "He ought to know. He's been right here for twenty-five years."
So Joe Star asked the waiter in French, and the waiter was very polite and didn't smile at his accent, and said that he had often counted guests from as many as thirty different countries at a Christmas dinner.
With the coffee came gay French fans for all the ladies and then John Moon and Joe Star began to smoke and match stories.
"Joe Star's adventures are equal to Sindbad's when he gets as far away as Constantinople," said John Moon.
"How did you happen to go to Constantinople, Joe Star?" asked Nicholas.
"I sailed under sealed orders," said Joe Star.
"That reminds me," said John Moon. "Once upon a time, Nicholas–no, I'll save that one for I've just time to catch the last train home. Good night, everybody! Whistle for me, Nicholas. Don't let me break up the party."
But by that time all the parties were breaking up, and mingling with Christmas travellers from all over the world, Nicholas, Ann Caraway and Joe Star stepped out from the Lafayette into Christmas Night.
"The old Troll must be wondering what's become of us," said Ann Caraway. "Let's go home and light a fire before we go to bed."
"I've had a good time every single minute of this day, Joe Star," said Nicholas. "I like my Liberty flash-light best of all. I'm going to take it to bed with me tonight."
CHAPTER XI
NICHOLAS AT BRONX PARK
THE day after Christmas Nicholas spread out his map on the floor and exclaimed:
"I'm going to the Zoo today. I can't wait any longer to see all the birds and animals out there."
"It's a fine day for snowballing," said the Troll, looking out into Chelsea Square. "The snow is just right for snowballs. I'd like a good snowball fight with the Brown Bears. They are old friends of mine. Would you like to have me go along with you, Nicholas?"
"I'd rather go to Bronx Park with you, old Giant, than with anybody I've ever seen!" exclaimed Nicholas.
The Troll, you know, could turn into a brown bear whenever he felt like it and Nicholas had seen him do it.
"How far is it to Bronx Park?" asked Nicholas.
"They call it eleven miles from the City Hall to the Reptile House," the Troll replied, as he climbed down from the Christmas Tree. "You'd better bring your snowshoes along. I intend to take short cuts."
So Nicholas strapped his snowshoes on his back and in no time at all he and the Troll were playing a game of cross-tag round the Hall of Fame on their way to Bronx Park.
"Why it isn't a hall at all!" exclaimed Nicholas. "It's a kind of a gallery with the wind blowing through."
"That's what I like about it," said the Troll. "It's such a fine airy place and very few people in it. We haven't time to see who's there today for I want to get to Bronx Park before the Bears have their lunch. They're always too sleepy to play afterwards."
So the Troll took the shortest cut he knew from the Hall of Fame to the Fordham entrance of the Zoological Park. On they hurried past the Lion House, the Elephant House and the Monkey House, until they came to the Bear Dens in the rocks.
The Brown Bears were out in front of their dens playing in the snow. As soon as the Big Brown Bear saw the Troll coming, he stood on his hind legs and laughed, then he stooped down, scooped up a lot of snow in his forepaws, stood up on his hind legs again and threw it at his brother, who was staring with all his might at Nicholas on his snowshoes.
"Wake up, Brother!" he shouted. "The Old Man of the Dovrefeld is coming."
"Why didn't you come up Christmas Eve?" he called to the Troll. "We had a splendid party in our forest. All the outside animals came."
"I was policing Brownie's Big Party for Nicholas," the Troll called back, "and it didn't break up till cock-crow. The Library Lions put Brownie up to it. Nicholas had them roaring before he had been in the city an hour."
"Where's Nicholas now?" asked the Little Brown Bear, who had been hiding behind one of the big ones.
"Here I am!" said Nicholas. "Don't you know me, Little Bear? I'm Nicholas."
"Who's Nicholas? Where did he come from?" roared the two Big Bears.
"Speak up Nicholas and tell them why you came," said the Troll.
But before Nicholas had time to tell who he was and why he came, the Troll had turned into a Brown Bear and was scooping up snowballs as fast as he could.
He had a glorious snowball fight with the two Big Bears, while Nicholas and the Little Bear stood by and cheered. At last the two Big Bears were completely winded and laid down to rest before lunch. But the Troll said his blood was only just beginning to circulate and he would like a run through the forest before lunch.
"Take off your snowshoes and jump on my back, Nicholas, and I'll show you some American wonders," he said. So Nicholas took off his snowshoes and hopped on the Troll's back and off he trotted on all fours to the Buffalo Range.
"There's the old king of the Western Plains, Nicholas. He always looks lonesome and sad and no wonder. He lost all his rights when they built the big railroad across the country. I never know just what to say to a Buffalo but I wouldn't dream of coming to Bronx Park without paying my respects. It's the least a fellow can do," said the old Troll, and on he trotted to the Elk Range by way of Mountain Sheep Hill.
"Look up there on the sky line, Nicholas. That's Aoudad climbing up to the highest rock to show off. He's seen us coming and wants us to stop and watch him. That old Barbary Sheep is as vain as a peacock. I have lots of fun with him sometimes but we haven't time to stop today."
At the Elk Range the Troll slackened his pace. "There goes young Woodland Caribou on his snowshoes," he called out. "He's from Maine and so is Big Moose. It's a nice bit of forest they live in. There's a lake in it. Look sharp, Nicholas, there's somebody else behind those silver birch trees."
"I see Reindeer," shouted Nicholas, "there goes another Reindeer and another and another–four of them, old Giant."
"There's a nice little Gazelle in here," said the Troll, opening the door of the Deers' House. "You've just time to whisper in her ear that you'll come again another day. Be quick about it."
But Nicholas was so enchanted with the lovely little Gazelle and whispered so many messages in both her ears that the Troll called out quite sternly: "Come, come, Nicholas, I'm hungry!"
From the hill-top above the Deers' House came the sound of jolly laughter and skurrying feet, and as Nicholas ran up the hill after the old Troll he suddenly found himself standing on the edge of the strangest little village he had ever seen.
Just in front of him, at the door of his house, sat a plump little fellow who was laughing away at Nicholas as hard as ever he could.
"Who is he, old Giant?" asked Nicholas.
"The Mayor of Prairie-dog Village," replied the Troll. "Did you ever see a jollier lot of folks? Every one of them makes his own house."
"I've never seen anything like those houses," said Nicholas. "They look like little mounds. They must be warm and cosy inside. What funny little tails they have, old Giant! I'd like to stay here all day," and then Nicholas looked at the Mayor again and laughed, and the Mayor laughed back at him, and before they left Prairie-dog Village he had counted fifty little Prairie-dogs laughing back at their Mayor as they sat at the doors of their houses.
"Hop on my back again," said the Troll, "for I'm starving," and as he trotted off across the Park they could still hear the Prairie-dogs laughing, laughing, laughing–just the way they do far out on the Western Prairies.
Nicholas and the Troll were hungry as hunters. They ate a very large luncheon and afterward the Troll rocked Nicholas on the big Rocking Stone and they sat watching the Raccoon Tree where lots of Raccoons were taking naps after their own lunch.
"Coons are very particular," said the Troll, "they won't eat a thing until after they've washed it."
"I'd like to see the Beavers working," said Nicholas. "That was a fine exhibition they had at Brownie's Party."
"They never work when anybody is looking on," said the Troll. "I've stood here by the hour but I've never seen them do a single thing. They think of more interesting things to do than any animals I know and they keep at a job until it's finished. They must work about every night to get so much done. Now, Otters don't work so hard. I've seen them shoot the chutes for an hour at a time after they've rigged up the kind of a slide they like.
"How would you like to ride Gunther, Nicholas? Gunther's the Giant Tortoise over there by the Reptile House. Nobody knows how old he is. He's slow-moving, but it's a good place to think of things, you'll find, when you get on his back!"
"I'd love to ride a Tortoise," said Nicholas. "I've had lots of rides on Elephants and Camels, but I've never seen a Tortoise big enough to ride."
No sooner did Nicholas hop on the Tortoise's back than he saw what a good place it would be to draw a picture of the Mayor of Prairie-dog Village before he forgot how a Prairie-dog looks. So Nicholas took a sheet of paper out of his pocket and began to draw.
The Troll stumped off to the Bear Dens and the next thing Nicholas knew a Wolf was leaning over his shoulder to see whose picture he was drawing.
"That fellow isn't worth making a picture of," said the Wolf. "He isn't even a real dog. Come over to our dens and you'll see some real animals."
"I'm coming to see you and the Foxes too," said Nicholas, "but it takes time to get around. This fellow can do something you can't. He can laugh and set all his friends laughing."
The Wolf scowled and skulked back to his den.
Just then an Eagle swooped down, and hovering above the Tortoise, she shrieked: "You're keeping everybody waiting at the Bird House. They sent me to fetch you right away."
"Don't shriek at me like that," said Nicholas. "I never feel like doing things when people shriek at me. I'll come with you as soon as I've finished making this picture. I wouldn't go home without seeing all the birds for anything."
So the Eagle calmed down and waited for Nicholas to finish his sketch and then he hopped on her back and off she flew with him to the big Bird House.
"It's most sundown and closing time," said the Troll, who was waiting for Nicholas outside the Bird House. "We'll go home by the Boston Post Road. It runs through Bronx Park. Hop on my back, Nicholas, and hold fast, for I'm feeling very lively and I'm likely to take all the big rocks on the high jump. That's what I love about this Park, the big rocks and the old forest. It's all natural and homelike for the animals. Steady now, Nicholas, hold on tight."
"It's more fun going home than it was coming up, old Giant," shouted Nicholas, as the Troll leaped over the last rock and trotted out of the Park down the Boston Road. "How far does this road go?"
"All the way to Chatham Square," replied the Troll, "but I'll take a crosstown cut to Chelsea just below Kip's Bay."
CHAPTER XII
THE HIPPODROME
NICHOLAS and the Troll slept very late next morning and when they woke up the Christmas Room was flooded with sunshine.
"This is just the kind of a day to see all the fishes in the Round House," said Nicholas. "What do you say, old Giant?"
"I'm willing to go," replied the Troll, "if you'll walk down along shore. I like the docks."
"So do I!" said Nicholas, and he ran across the room to pick up two letters he spied sticking out from under the door.
One of them was written in a great hurry and marked "Immediate." Nicholas opened that one first and read:
Tickets for the Hippodrome tonight. Will bring John Moon. Meet you near the Pig with the Whistle, Nicholas, old Boy.JOE STAR
Whistle Boy.
The other letter was carefully addressed in small printing letters to Nicholas Knickerbocker, Esq., Chelsea. It was sealed with blue sealing wax and there was a special delivery stamp on it. Nicholas took out his knife to open this letter, for he didn't want to break the seal, it looked so nice with G. F. on it.
He read the letter very carefully and this is what it said:
GREENWICH VILLAGE,
Christmas Time.
DEAR NICHOLAS:
Please come to a Tea-party today and meet all my Friends.
I came from Holland too. My ship docked in Chelsea, St. Nicholas Day.
With love,
GRETCHEN.
P.S. Bring the Troll with you. He knows the way to Hudson Park.
"I've been going to see Gretchen every Christmas Eve since I came to New York," said the Troll. "She always has plenty of cream at her tea-parties and real Dutch cheese and cakes baked in the Village. Ann Caraway knows a good story about Gretchen and her Friends. I've often heard her tell it just before Christmas."
"There isn't any Pig with a whistle on my map!" said Nicholas, who had been looking for it. "How are we going to find Joe Star and John Moon if we don't know where to look?"
"Leave it to me," replied the Troll. "If there is such an animal I'll find it."
The sun was shining straight into the windows of the Aquarium when Nicholas and the Troll walked in and all the fishes were slipping in and out of their lovely ball dresses just the way Nicholas expected to find them, and the old Sea-Lion was calling, and calling, and calling: "Honk! Honk! Honk!" from the ball-room floor. They had such a good time and stayed so long that the Troll said they must take the shortest cut he knew across Lispenard's Meadow to Greenwich Village, or they would be late for Gretchen's tea-party.
The party was very Dutch in honor of Nicholas. Gretchen wore a great number of warm petticoats and a lace cap. Gretchen's Friends came from many different countries but they all liked her old Dutch tea-parties. There was another visitor that day, a charming young French actress named Suzette, who had brought her Marionettes.
Gretchen laughed merrily when Nicholas asked her if she knew whether the Pig with the whistle was in the Old Goose Market, and why it was left off his map.
"You turn your left foot in,
You turn your right foot out,
You give yourself a-shake-a-shake-shake
And turn yourself about
to go anywhere in Greenwich Village," said Gretchen. "The streets are all so crooked they can't be put on a map. But don't worry, Nicholas, Ann Caraway knows where it is and I wouldn't be surprised to see Joe Star and John Moon walk in any minute."
"Is Ann Caraway here yet?" asked the Troll.
"No, but she telephoned she was on the way. She always comes to my parties."
"Here she comes! Here she comes!" shouted Nicholas, and he rushed out to meet Ann Caraway, who put a lovely bunch of forget-me-nots into Gretchen's hands and gave her a kiss.
"Isn't Gretchen a dear?" Ann Caraway whispered to Nicholas, but Nicholas made no reply. The room had been suddenly darkened and Suzette was introducing her Marionettes. They gave the play of Hansel and Grethel and sang songs from Mother Goose and then they all had tea and afterward they danced and played Dutch games until Joe Star and John Moon walked in and marched them off to the Pig and Whistle. Nicholas discovered it wasn't a Pig with a whistle but the name of a Christmasy, Dickensy looking place where they had a very jolly dinner, half of the party sitting on a long bench against the wall–the other half sitting on another long bench at the opposite side of the table.
Joe Star had found an empty box at the Hippodrome so he invited Suzette and her friend Virginia to go too.
They all got on a Fifth Avenue bus in Washington Square and rode up as far as the Forty-second Street Traffic Tower, where they got down and crossed over on a green flash. When they came to Bryant Park, John Moon suddenly disappeared, taking Nicholas and the Troll with him.
"We'll wait here for them," said Joe Star. "Hello, Suzette!" he called, "have a look at the Man in the Moon!" for a man with a telescope was standing on the sidewalk just outside Bryant Park.
"It's a nickel a look," said the Telescope Man.
"A very low price," observed Joe Star, who had a whole pocketful of nickels. They were all standing round the telescope taking turns for a peep at the Man in the Moon when Nicholas and John Moon walked out of the Park with the Brownie. The Troll had stayed behind to guard the Park.
"I've always wanted to go to the Hippodrome," said the Brownie. "I've heard so much about it. The children who try to go Saturday afternoon and find the tickets all gone usually come to the Children's Room to look at picture books."
As soon as they turned up Sixth Avenue, Nicholas caught sight of the two huge revolving balls of lights on top of the Hippodrome and the long row of flags waving from the roof between the two balls.
"It's the biggest theatre I've ever seen, Joe Star," he said, as they filed into the empty box.
"The stage is supposed to be the largest in the world," said Joe Star. "There are about a thousand people in the cast and nearly a thousand more behind the scenes to make the wheels go round."
"Numbers mean nothing at all to me," murmured Suzette, "but I know I am going to be enchanted." And she was, from the moment the curtain went up on "The Coming of the Birds" in "The Awakening of Spring" until it fell on "The Golden Dream Ship" with its Ballet of Water Nymphs. Suzette looked on breathless and speechless, while lovely young girls jumped out of blossoming peach trees and Witches, Marionettes, Pierrots, Harlequins and Columbines played in "The Land of Mystery."
Even when Orlando appeared with his Wonderful Horses who all knew their numbers, Suzette did not know they had numbers. And when Nicholas and the Brownie, John Moon, Joe Star, and Ann Caraway laughed uproariously at all the funny things Marceline and the other Hippodrome Clowns did and leaned far out of the box to watch the Dancing Elephants, Suzette still dreamed on–through the Grand Opera Ball, and The Story of a Fan with Egyptian vases, golden statues and porcelain figures turning real every second–she dreamed.
Not until the last of all the hundreds of Water Nymphs disappeared in the great tank below the stage did Suzette speak. Then she asked the same question everyone else does:
"Where do they all go?"
"But where is Charlotte, the wonderful skater, I've heard so much about?" asked the Brownie. "Isn't she going to skate for Nicholas?"
And then the most wonderful thing of all happened. Charlotte, who was supposed to have gone back to Switzerland appeared with her friends and skated on purpose for Nicholas.
And afterward, when they all walked out into Times Square to see the lights of Broadway, Nicholas kept saying over and over again: "Charlotte was the best of all! Charlotte was the best of all!"
CHAPTER XIII
NEW YEAR'S EVE IN MAINE
"TAKE the lower berth, Nicholas, old boy," said Joe Star. "Ben always does, he likes to see the red and green lights on the water when the train goes over a bridge, and he says he wakes up to see the man go by with the mail-bag and hear the klang-klang-Klang-klang-klang going over a crossing. Ben has wonderful dreams, too. Get him to tell you about the Indi-Aga Country and Squawbo but don't say I told you anything."
Nicholas shook his head. "I won't tell. How old is Ben?"
"Just a little older than you are, Nicholas," replied Joe Star, "and there's nobody like him for giving a fellow of any age a good time. Don't I wish I was going too?" he added longingly. "You'll fall asleep in New York, or Connecticut maybe, and wake up in Rhode Island, Massachusetts or New Hampshire–before you get to Maine. How's that for a night ride, Nicholas?"
"All aboard!" called the conductor of the State of Maine Express before Nicholas had time to reply.
"Happy New Year to everybody in Portland!" called Joe Star as he stepped out on the platform of the Grand Central Station.
"We're off for dear old Maine, Nicholas," said Ann Caraway, who was tying two long rolls fast to her umbrella. "I'm always leaving my umbrella in railway trains but I know it will be safe this time. I'm not likely to forget a wedding or a birthday." Inside of each roll was a Mappe of Fairyland. Nicholas had liked this map so much that when he heard Ann Caraway say they were going to a wedding on New Year's Day, he proposed taking one to give to the bride. Ann Caraway had been delighted with the suggestion.
"I'm taking another Mappe of Fairyland for a double birthday I happen to know about, Nicholas," she said. "We'll tie them up with blue and silver ribbons when we get to Portland and we'll seal them with gold stars."
Nicholas was staring about him in amazement. He had never been in an American railway car before and it was very different from any car he had ever seen in Europe. A colored porter had already begun to make up the berths and Nicholas, watching him pull out and let down one strange contrivance after another, finally said, "He must be extra strong in his shoulders."
"Are you really going to sleep on the top shelf behind the curtains, Ann Caraway?" he asked.
"I really am," said she. "There's more air up there and I don't need to look out of the windows because I know just how everything looks between New York and Maine. Climb up the ladder yourself, Nicholas, and see what it's like up there."
So when the porter brought the step-ladder Nicholas climbed up with his flash-light and found the top berth very cosy. Then he climbed down again.
Before Ann Caraway climbed up, she said, "When I go up and lie down in the top berth, Nicholas, I'll forget all about New York. I'll see only the White Mountains covered with snow and a lovely old garden with Christmas trees growing all round it and then, far away in the sky, the wonderful Northern Lights will stream down.
"And after that I'll begin to see all the boys and girls I ever knew, skating and coasting, first in the daylight, then by moonlight, and I'll see great bonfires blazing on the ice, and then I'll sail away on an ice boat, and the next thing I know, Nicholas, I'll be waking up–not in my old home in the country, but in a city that seemed like a fairy city when I was a little girl because Ben's grandfather and grandmother gave my brothers and me such wonderful times there.
"St. Nicholas always came to us by way of Portland Harbor, up over the Saco River, and he rode in a zigzag over the Ossipee Valley and across the White Mountains to the rest of the world.
"The New Year came in over the tops of the pine trees straight from the great North Country."
"Maine sounds like a place the Troll would like," said Nicholas. "I wish he had come with us, Ann Caraway. I miss the Troll."
"Joe Star needs him more than we do, Nicholas. It's hard luck to be treasure-hunting in city streets when you long to be in the Maine Woods.
"Here comes the porter to make up the last berth! Good-night, dear Nicholas! Remember your dreams," said Ann Caraway as she vanished behind the curtains, which hung from the top of the upper berth all the way down to the floor.
All the passengers and all the seats had disappeared by this time, and from one end of the car to the other, Nicholas could see nothing but curtains hanging straight up and down on each side.
This looked very strange to him. There seemed to be nowhere to go and nothing else to do, so Nicholas stepped behind the curtains straight into his own berth, and pushed the window shade clear up. The sky was full of stars and the train went rushing along, rushing along, rushing along, without ever stopping at all. Nicholas put his flash-light under his pillow and was soon fast asleep.
Early next morning, before it was light, he heard the klang-klang-Klang-klang-klang of the bell at a crossing. Looking out he could see dark shadowy pine trees and although he couldn't see it, he knew the sea must be near.
In another moment the porter was twitching his curtains, saying, "Kennebunk, Kennebunk."
"Time to get up, Nicholas," Ann Caraway called down from the upper berth. "We're in Maine. Watch for the Saco River. It flows into the Ocean just beyond here.
On past Old Orchard Beach and over wide salt marshes rushed the State of Maine Express.
Before the train stopped at Union Station, Nicholas saw a boy standing on the platform–a boy in a red stocking cap, heavy ulster and big boots. Beside him, quivering with excitement, was a little fox terrier.
"There's Ben. I know it's Ben Star," cried Nicholas.
But the train had stopped and Ben Star was saying, "Happy New Year, Nicholas! Welcome to Portland!" And as he turned to greet Ann Caraway, Hunky, the little dog, came to meet Nicholas, laughing all over from the tip of his nose to the tip of his tail.
"Old Pat is out here with the sleigh," said Ben. "It snowed all day yesterday and it's cleared off cold." The snow creaked and crunched under their feet and Ben's breath rose like smoke in the clear frosty air as they walked out to the waiting sleigh.
Old Pat was so thoroughly muffled up in a long comforter that he could barely nod to Ann Caraway when she got into the sleigh.
Ben Star tucked the big buffalo robes about them and away dashed the old sleigh with its jingling bells. Up the steep side of Cassidy's Hill raced the horses.
Morning was just breaking over the city and Ben Star told Nicholas to look back and see the white smoke rising from the freight-yard at the foot of the Western Promenade.
"You can't see the harbor from here," he said, "but there's Cape Elizabeth beyond the back bay."
"And there's the old grey house on the hill with the little windows like eyes near the roof, and the cupola on top. I haven't any map of Portland, but Joe has told me how your house looks, Ben. I should know that house anywhere," said Nicholas.
Old Pat turned in by a granite gateway a moment later and the horses pranced up a broad circular driveway to the front porch of the old grey house on the hill.
Before the sleigh stopped Ben was out of it and up the steps pulling away at the door-bell.
By the time Nicholas and Ann Caraway reached the top step the door opened and in ran Hunky, ahead of them all, to tell Ben's mother that Nicholas had come.
Inside the old grey house it looked like early Christmas morning with the dawn coming up from the harbor and grey shadows hanging over the wide entrance hall. In a far corner of the living-room Nicholas could see the ghost of a Christmas Tree hung with chains of white, and he could smell a spicy smell of carnations, rose geranium and fir balsam.
"Let's take Nicholas to see the Marble Boy before we light up," said Ben, leading the way to the drawing-room, where the shadows hung still thicker about the big pictures on the walls and the piano loomed up a strange dark shape.
The Marble Boy was sitting before a long pier-glass with his chin resting on one finger. He had been sitting there ever since Ann Caraway could remember.
"When I was a little girl I knew he would turn into a real boy some day," she said, "so as soon as I came inside the house I always slipped in here to put my hand on the Marble Boy to see if he felt any warmer than he did last time."
Ben Star pulled off his mittens and put his hand on the Marble Boy. "It may happen any minute," he said. "He's warmer than my hand now. You feel of him, Nicky."
Nicholas put up his hand to feel the Marble Boy and nodding to Ben he whispered, "Better leave the window open for him."
"I will," said Ben, "and after breakfast we'll make a Snow Boy for him to play with, out there under the old cherry tree. Now let's go light the fire and the candles before mother comes down."
As Ben and Nicholas ran back across the hall to the room where the Christmas Tree stood, Hunky came tearing down stairs barking with joy, and behind him came Ben's mother.
"Happy New Year, Nicholas!" she called. "Hunky's told me all about you and now he's telling you how glad we all are that you've come to our house this Christmas time. When my big boy telegraphed that you and Ann Caraway would be on the State of Maine Express this morning, you should have seen the wild dance Ben and I had. We were so happy we couldn't sit still, and Hunky was just as glad as we were. Weren't you, little dog?"
Then Hunky went wild with joy, and laughing all over, he began telling Ben's mother his Nicholas story all over again.
Ben had lighted the candles and the big logs on the hearth burst into flame as he threw on pine cones and pieces of driftwood.
Over the white marble mantelpiece hung a big looking-glass in a gilt frame. "Like the one Alice stepped through," thought Nicholas.
The Christmas Tree had come out of the shadows now and Nicholas saw that it was hung with chains of red berries as well as with chains of snowy white. It stood on a carpet of grey moss with evergreen trailing over it.
"I've never seen a Christmas Tree like it before," he said.
"I went into the woods and cut it myself, Nicky," said Ben.
"What are those white chains made of?" asked Nicholas.
"Popcorn," said Ben. "I strung all the cranberries and popcorn. It took hours and hours to do it. Popcorn is good to eat you know. But we won't eat those chains. We'll pop some fresh popcorn over the coals tonight. Now come and see what's over here," and taking Nicholas by the hand, Ben led him over to one of the big front windows. On the broad, low window-sill was a miniature forest of tiny trees–pine, fir, hemlock and cedar, with a carpet of moss underneath. At the edge of the wood stood a little house made of birch-bark and a tiny birch-bark canoe with a paddle.
"I put the Maine Woods in this window for you, Nicky. There's another window for Ann Caraway," said Ben. But Nicholas had eyes only for his own little forest. He liked it so much that he couldn't say anything at all.
Ben felt so happy himself that he was smiling all over when he led Ann Caraway over to her window. There was a glass bowl of red partridge berries growing over green moss, and on either side of it stood a pot of pale pink primroses with thick velvety leaves. Above them hung some branches of pine Ben had lightly twisted together with a bit of evergreen.
"It's the prettiest wreath I've seen this year, Ben," said Ann Caraway. "It looks just as if it had grown that way."
The sun was up now and as they stood looking out into the garden Ben called, "Nicky, Nicky. Come quick! There goes our old Woodpecker."
Nicholas left his forest and ran over to the side window just in time to see a Red-headed Woodpecker fly across the snow-laden shrubbery to a tall elm tree.
"We have lots of birds here," said Ben. "In summer they come from all over to take their baths in our fountains. I could show you some birds you've never seen in Holland, Nicky."
"You must all be nearly starved," said Ben's mother. "Let's have breakfast before we look at anything else, Ben," and she led the way to a dining-room from whose windows Nicholas could see a large garden with many fruit trees and a glass house. A long path led through the middle of the garden to a distant gate, and just as Ben was pouring maple sirup over Nicholas's third griddle-cake, he heard a shrill sharp whistle.
"There's the Postman coming up Spring Street," said Ben. "Watch for him to come through the gate, Nicky."
So Nicholas let his third cake grow cold while he watched for the Postman to open the gate and come down the long path to the back porch. Ben and Hunky were waiting for him at the door so he didn't have to blow his whistle again.
"Eat a big breakfast, Nicky," said Ben as he came back with his hands full of letters for his mother. "We're going right out to shovel snow the first thing we do, and later on I'll take you for a toboggan slide down the Western Promenade."
"Please let me know when you're ready for that, Ben," said Ann Caraway. "I haven't had a slide for an age and I want to see Mount Washington with the sun shining on the snow. It's going to be very clear today."
While Ann Caraway was telling Joe Star's mother all about Joe and their Christmas in New York, Ben and Nicholas helped old Pat shovel paths. And when they were tired of shovelling, Ben Star made the jolliest looking Snow Boy under the old cherry tree and showed Nicholas his own special seat high up in the tree.
"It's an English cherry tree," he said, "and cherries are ripe Fourth of July. They're the best cherries in the world, Nicky. You should see the Robins try to gobble them all up before I can get there. There's an Oriole's nest still hanging from that old elm tree, and we have a swing between the two big elms in front of the barn. Ann Caraway laughs when I call it a barn. She says it's a stable, but I call it a little grey barn."
Across one end of the barn there was a low greenhouse with a slanting roof and Ben lifted Nicholas up to see how lovely the red, and pink, and white carnations, the purple heliotrope, and the roses looked blooming out there in the glass house with the snow all round it.
"Mother's violets are over here," he said, brushing the feathery white snow from the top of another little glass house where the violets were blooming all by themselves.
"I didn't expect to find flowers blooming in Maine in winter, Ben," said Nicholas. "I thought it was too cold."
"There are lots of lovely greenhouses in Portland," said Ben. "Ours is just a little one, but I love it. My grandmother always had flowers in winter and so did Ann Caraway's mother. She had a lovely greenhouse up in the country. Get Ann Caraway to tell you about old John Riley. He used to tell her Irish fairy tales while he smoked his pipe in her mother's greenhouse. That's where she first saw a fairy hiding under a maidenhair fern she says.
"Let's go into the barn now and jump on the hay, while old Pat's out of sight."
Inside the little grey barn Nicholas was surprised to find a Jersey cow with her calf. "I haven't seen a cow since I left Holland, Ben," he said.
When they came down from the haymow they talked to Lucifer and Lightning, the horses which had brought them from the station.
"This little stall belonged to Dash, mother's pony," said Ben. "He's gone where all good ponies go. It's quite a cosy little barn you see, and you walk into the greenhouse through that door behind the old sleigh. We'll just take a look and a whiff and then we'll pick up our Ann Caraway and go for a toboggan slide."
It was very moist and warm inside the greenhouse.
"Can't you smell the things growing?" said Ben.
Nicholas drew a long breath and then he said, "Yes, I can, and I love it."
They were outside again in a jiffy, running across the drive to the back porch.
Ann Caraway had seen them coming and was buckling her arctics in haste.
"I'm ready whenever you are," she called pulling on a warm sweater and a toboggan cap.
"Portland is almost an island, Nicky," said Ben as they walked up Spring Street toward the Western Promenade. "Tomorrow we'll go up Munjoy Hill to the Eastern Promenade and see the harbor and the islands. I want to take you skating in Deering's Oaks this afternoon. Did you bring your skates?"
"I brought my skates, my snowshoes, my spy-glasses and my flash-light," said Nicholas. "Joe said I would need all of them in Portland."
"You surely will if the weather holds fine.
"There's Mount Washington, Nicky, the highest one of all," said Ben, as they walked out across the Western Promenade and the White Mountains stood out sharp and clear against the blue sky.
"They are miles away," said Ann Caraway, "but they always seem so near on a day like this. I've climbed Madison and Adams, Nicholas, but I've never been up Mount Washington.
"Do they still name the old locomotives, Ben? Moat Mountain used to come tearing down through Ossipee every afternoon and go steaming and puffing up through the mountains again next morning."
But they had reached the toboggan slide....
"It's the best fun I ever had in my life, Ben," said Nicholas after his thirteenth slide.
"It's dinner time now," said Ben. "I'm glad you like it, Nicky. We'll come again tomorrow."
After dinner they set off with snowshoes and skates for Deering's Oaks. The ice had been swept clear of snow and the skating was fine. After a while they skated up under an arched bridge, where Ben stopped and said, "Listen, Nicky."
Then he yelled, "Hello!" Hello!" and Nicholas heard "Hello! Hello!" come floating back.
"Now you call, Nicky," said Ben, so Nicholas shouted "Hello! Hello! Where's Joe!" Back came the echo, "Hello! Hello! Where's Joe?"
"I'll tell Joe the Echo in Deering's Oaks asked for him," said Nicholas.
Skating on under the bridge they came to a brook over which the snow lay too thick for skates, so they turned back and woke the echoes again. As they skated out into the open Hunky suddenly appeared, scuttling through the snow.
"Well, well, little Hunky dog," said Ben. "Let's show Nicholas our old duck-house."
So they skated over to an island in the middle of the Oaks and Hunky raced round and round the little wooden house where the ducks live in summer....
There was a glorious sunset going on while they were strapping up skates and snowshoes, and by the time they reached Congress Street, lights were shining from the windows of big old square houses and the street lamps were lit.
That night after supper, as they were all sitting round the fire, a tall, fine-looking man came in with some other friends. Ben called this man "Uncle Ira" and he told Nicholas he could listen all night to his stories of the Maine Woods.
"One day when 'Uncle Ira' was telling me a bear story, Nicky, a squirrel came and sat over on the window-sill where your woods are. He stayed through the story and seemed to like it."
Nicholas looked over to the window as if he expected to see the squirrel still sitting there.
"Do you think he will tell a bear story tonight, Ben?"
"He will if he feels like it," said Ben. "After he's smoked a while. I believe he's just about ready to begin one now. If he tells one story he's almost certain to tell another."
'Uncle Ira' told three thrilling stories and then it was time to go to bed.
Next morning Nicholas explored Portland with Ben.
From the Eastern Promenade on Munjoy Hill they looked straight out to sea and Nicholas put up his spy-glasses to count the sails on the horizon.
"There are three hundred and sixty-five islands in Casco Bay, Nicky, but you can't begin to see all of them from here. There's Cushing's Island and Great Diamond! There's Fort Preble and Fort Williams! Eagle Island, where Admiral Peary lived with his Eskimo dogs, is way down the harbor. Come back next summer and we'll go down to the Islands every day. Put up your spy-glasses now while I ask those fellows if they will give us a ride on their bob."
Nicholas put his spy-glasses back into their case and slung it over his shoulder and then he ran over the top of Munjoy Hill after Ben.
By the time he caught up with him the boys were shouting, "Come along!" So they all piled on the big bob-sled and coasted down the Eastern Promenade.
After dinner, Ben's mother invited Nicholas and Ann Caraway to go for a sleigh-ride. There wasn't room for Ben in the single sleigh and he said he couldn't go anyway for he had promised to go out to Stroudwater with another boy before he knew Nicholas was coming.
Ben's mother drove Lightning herself. "Where would you like to go, Nicholas?" she asked.
"I'd like to see Two Lights on Cape Elizabeth," said Nicholas, so they drove over a long bridge to Cape Elizabeth, all the way to the twin lighthouses far out on the Cape. Nicholas had never seen a lighthouse close up and he was fascinated. "I'd like to stay here all night!" he exclaimed when Ben's mother said it was time to go.
By the time they reached the mainland the streets were lighted.
"Shall we go right home, or shall we go down to the wharves and look for lobsters?" said Ben's mother.
"Let's go to the wharves!" exclaimed Ann Caraway. "Nicholas will love it down there after dark."
So they went jingling along by the black wharves, and looking down one of the long quays, Nicholas could see wooden ships and fishing smacks.
"There's a Nantucket schooner, Nicholas, down from the Banks of Newfoundland," said Ben's mother. "It's frozen in."
Nicholas could see fishermen in oilskins coming ashore and strange-looking sailors appeared out of the shadows, as they drove down one dimly-lighted pier after another, looking for lobsters.
They found some at last–"the best lobster I ever ate," Nicholas called it at supper that night.
On the way home they invited Miss Harriet Friend to come and see the Mappe of Fairyland. They found her sitting high up in one of the big old houses making tiny wreaths of fir balsam to put in her Christmas letters. The room she was sitting in looked exactly like a ship's cabin. It had a little stairway of its own.
"It is like the cabin of a ship, Nicholas, because this house was built by one of the old Portland sea captains," said Miss Harriet Friend. "He wanted a place where he could go off by himself whenever he pleased. You can step right out on deck from the window. I have a garden there in Springtime."
Miss Harriet Friend opened her window for Nicholas, and he ran out across the flat roof. "I can see the Big Dipper from here," he called back....
Miss Harriet Friend knew all about Portland, and she knew more about Christmas in different countries than any one Nicholas had yet met.
"She makes little stories when she talks," he said. She had been telling them what Longfellow's house looked like inside for she had often visited there.
Before they went to bed that night, Ann Caraway read "The Skeleton in Armor" and "The Saga of King Olaf" to Nicholas and Ben and sent them sailing away into the White North.
"I never knew that Longfellow wrote such nice ghost stories," said Ben.
"The Troll would love them," said Nicholas.
"Longfellow liked Washington Irving's stories best of all," said Ann Caraway. "They set him dreaming about other countries, dreaming of Portland too."...
Nicholas slept in one of the little rooms near the roof, with windows like eyes close down to the floor.
He was just sailing away to the Land of the Frost Giants with the Troll when he heard a tap at his door.
The door opened without a creak and there stood Ben in his pyjamas.
"Come with me, Nicky," he whispered. Nicholas jumped out of bed and ran to the door. Hand-in-hand with Ben he stepped out into the blackness. In another moment they were creeping up a narrow stairway, the banister rail creaking at Ben's touch. There was a dry, dusty smell as they reached the top of the stairs and stepped into a tower with windows all round–north, south, east and west. Out of the north window Nicholas could see the Northern Lights pointing long fingers down, and from the south window he could see the ships in the harbor and the twinkling lights on Cape Elizabeth.
"You can't see the White Mountains tonight, but they're over there in the west," whispered Ben. "If you'll promise to tell no one what you see we'll look over the edge of the world, Nicky."
Nicholas promised and Ben led him over to the east window. As they stood looking out, the stars seemed to come right down underneath. Beyond the snowy roof rose the black outlines of the great elm trees. Then they looked down, down, down into space.
"There goes the Old Year, over the edge of the world," said Ben, as the old clock in the hall began to strike twelve. "Count, Nicky, and we'll give the New Year a call on the last stroke,” and Ben Star tugged at the stiff lock on the eastern window. He had the window up when Nicholas said ten, and at twelve they both shouted, "Happy New Year! Happy New Year!"
Then they crept back to their beds and slept soundly all night.
New Year's morning Ben and Nicholas went tobogganing again and in the afternoon they all got into the big sleigh and rode away to the wedding. The wedding was in the country in an old yellow farmhouse near the Saco River. The bride told Nicholas that she liked the Mappe of Fairyland best of all her presents and she carried it away with her on her wedding journey.
CHAPTER XIV
A TWELFTH NIGHT SURPRISE
WHEN the Knickerbocker Limited arrived at the Grand Central Station on Twelfth Night Eve John Moon and Joe Star were waiting at the gate.
"There they come behind the pine trees," cried Joe Star. "Nicholas looks for all the world like a Jack-in-the-Green. Let's pretend not to see them."
But John Moon was already waving to Ann Caraway, and a moment later Nicholas was giving Joe Star a little pine tree.
"I brought this tree all the way from Maine for you, Joe Star," he said. "Ben went into the woods for it. I had a wonderful time with Ben."
"Didn't I tell you, Nicholas, old boy?" said Joe Star. "Let's check the bags here and leave the pine boughs at the Library with Brownie while we go and have supper at Henri's and after that, if you're not sleepy, we'll see the new Twelfth Night play at the Little Theatre."
"We slept most of the way over from Boston, Joe," said Ann Caraway, "so you see we're ready for anything now. It sounds like a lovely party."
The Brownie was nowhere in sight when they left the pine boughs in the Children's Room but the Troll was there and he sniffed the fresh Maine smell greedily.
"Couldn't you come to see the play with us, old Giant?" asked Nicholas.
But the Troll shook his head and said he was too busy arranging for a little Twelfth Night party of his own.
"Meet me beside the first Library Lion tomorrow night after dark," he whispered to Nicholas. "You can bring Ann Caraway with you but no one else. It's the last night of Christmas, you know."
Nicholas ran out of the Children's Room after the others and they all walked up Fifth Avenue on an orange flash until they came to Forty-sixth Street. Then they walked west on a green flash until they came to Henri's. There were lovely French baskets and boxes and all kinds of New Year surprises in the two big windows. When they walked into Henri's Nicholas could see the most fascinating little cakes on one side, and on the other side there were French bonbons and chocolates in every shape you can think of. He wanted to stop and look around, but they walked straight upstairs to a big room with a high part and a low part and the stairs from the candy-shop coming up between.
This time they sat at a table in the low part. There was no music and no one wanted any, they were having such a good time just talking and laughing. All round him Nicholas could hear French people speaking in their own language.
Joe Star had been news-hunting down on Long Island with John Moon and they had so many funny stories to tell of their adventures that Nicholas and Ann Caraway didn't even begin to tell theirs.
"I saw Paul Revere's house in Boston, Joe Star," said Nicholas, "and Faneuil Hall, but there was nobody in it. I wish I'd seen the Blue Devils there the way Ann Caraway did once. I like Boston, but I want a map of my own before I go again. Could you make one for me, John Moon?"
But John Moon had hastily left the table and disappeared downstairs. He was back in no time, his hands filled with oranges.
"Let's touch them off one at a time, Joe," he said, as he placed an orange beside each of their plates.
Nicholas knew it wasn't a real orange as soon as he felt it. The skin was so dry and crackly.
John Moon struck a light and lighted Nicholas's orange first and it burst with a fizz and a bang and lots of smoke. In the empty shell were some tiny marbles and a little secret wrapped up in paper; then Joe Star lighted Ann Caraway's orange and that fizz-banged too.
"Now you set off mine, Joe, and I'll set yours off at the same time," said John Moon. The two oranges burst with a double fizz-bang. Then John Moon took out his watch and said, "Nearly time for the curtain to go up and I must be there for I have to write a story about the new Twelfth Night play. I know the man who wrote it and so does Ann Caraway. He's always wanted to write a Christmas play, for children, and this is a jolly one."
"What's the name of it?" asked Nicholas.
"Manhattan's Twelfth Night," replied John Moon. "We have to cross Broadway to get to the Little Theatre, Nicholas, so we must hurry along."
The Little Theatre looks just the way you would think a theatre in a king's palace should look.
"It's just the place for a Twelfth Night play,” said Ann Caraway. "I saw 'Snow-White and the Seven Dwarfs' here one Christmas time, Nicholas," she whispered as the curtain went up on Manhattan's Twelfth Night.
"That's the jolliest play I've ever seen," said Nicholas when the curtain fell on the last act.
"It's the very first play of its kind," said John Moon, "and they put it on tonight on purpose for you, Nicholas."
"Please thank them for me, John Moon," said Nicholas, beaming with pleasure as they walked down Broadway.
That night Nicholas slept soundly in the Night before Christmas Country.
Next morning he found a letter tucked under his door, and when he opened it two blue tickets fell out. They were marked Punch and Judy Theatre, January 6, 3.30 P.M. The letter said:
Tony Sarg's Marionettes are playing "The Rose and the Ring," Nicholas, old boy. John Moon and I have to work today but we want you and Ann Caraway to sit up there in one of the little boxes and come back and tell us all about it. Whistle for us, Nicholas!
JOE STAR,
Whistle Boy.
Nicholas skated in Central Park until lunch time and met Ann Caraway at Lucky's.
The Punch and Judy Theatre was filled with children, who were all as quiet as mice before the curtain went up.
All round the sides of that little theatre, high up like a gallery, there are boxes that hold just two people. Nicholas and Ann Caraway sat in one of these boxes. They could see all the children who were sitting downstairs as well as the play. Nicholas had often seen Marionettes, but he had never seen them play "The Rose and the Ring," and when the Fairy Blackstick turned that very tall, fierce, extremely rude porter, Gruffanuff–who had refused to admit the Fairy to the Princess Angelica's christening–into a brass knocker Nicholas went wild with joy and leaning far out of the box he clapped and shouted: "Serves him right! Serves him right!" No one paid any attention to him for every child in the theatre was shouting the same thing.
"I wish the Troll could see this play," he whispered when the curtain went down on the first act.
While Nicholas and Ann Caraway were following the fortunes of the careless Prince Giglio and his cousin Angelica, the little maid Betsinda with her warming-pan, Prince Bulbo with his fairy rose, the awful old Countess Gruffanuff, and all the others, the Troll had gone down to Hudson Park to consult Gretchen about his plans for Twelfth Night.
"I must be off tonight, Gretchen, as you know, but I don't want to tell Nicholas that I'm going. I just want to leave him having a good time with a few friends he can count upon until I come back again next Christmas Eve. Not a big party at all. I've asked Brownie, of course, an Irish Fairy, a Cornish Pixy, a Goblin I know very well, and a couple of Elves. I'd like to take them for a ride across Brooklyn Bridge but I'm afraid all the others will want to come too."
"How would you like to take the Mysterious Taxi tonight," said Gretchen. "I think I could get it for you, only I should have to come along myself."
"Nicholas would love to have you," said the Troll, "and so would I. How shall we manage?"
"I'll ride up to Murray Hill and fetch you all,” said Gretchen.
"You'll find us waiting beside the first Library Lion," said the Troll. "I told Nicholas to meet me there after dark. Do you mind if Ann Caraway goes along?"
"Of course I don't mind," said Gretchen. "Ann Caraway was with me the first Christmas I ever rode in the Mysterious Taxi. There was some one else with us. He looked like St. Nicholas and he gave me the number of the taxi and told me a secret way of calling it whenever I needed it for a friend. You are one of my oldest friends, you know."
The old Troll stumped off, looking very happy indeed. And when it was dark–dark enough for the Milligan Place Lamp to be lighted–Gretchen called the Mysterious Taxi and rode up through Chelsea to Murray Hill.
Ever so many people tried to hail that taxi, for it appeared to be empty. But the driver paid no attention to anybody. He kept straight on until he came to the first Library Lion. The Troll was watching for the Mysterious Taxi, and before it stopped he was standing on the curb with his little party.
Gretchen made room for Nicholas and the Brownie on the seat beside her and while they were all getting nicely settled, the Troll stumped back for a word with the first Library Lion.
"Skaal, Leo Astor!" he called. "Take good care of Nicholas while I'm gone. Tell Leo Lenox to watch for him every time he crosses Forty-second Street. Don't look for me back before Christmas Eve."
Then the Troll climbed into the Mysterious Taxi and away it rolled down Fifth Avenue to Washington Square.
"Where are we going, old Giant?" asked Nicholas as the Mysterious Taxi crawled in and out of one crooked street after another.
"We are going to have supper first," said Gretchen, and the Mysterious Taxi stopped before the door of a little white house with green blinds.
Gretchen had ordered a delicious supper with a fire on the hearth and candles and a Twelfth Night cake at the end.
The Irish Fairy had just begun to tell fortunes when there came a knock at the door. The Goblin flew to open it. It was the driver of the Mysterious Taxi.
"I'm cold and hungry and lonesome out there," said he.
"Sit right down and eat a hot supper," said Gretchen, "and you'll feel better. The Troll will look after your car."
So the driver sat down between Gretchen and the Brownie and ate a very large supper and drank any number of cups of strong coffee and then he said, with a smile and a twinkle in his eye, "I have a surprise for you all," and up he got and walked out to the Mysterious Taxi. When he came back he brought a pile of lovely fur coats. There was one for each of them.
"You'll need fur coats," he said, "for the Mysterious Taxi has turned into a Wide-open Taxi. The moon is full and we are going to ride over the bridges tonight."
"Good! Good!" shouted Nicholas. "That's what I've been wanting to do ever since I came."
So they all put on the soft, warm fur coats, which were as light as thistledown, and then they climbed into the Wide-open Taxi.
The Troll sat up beside the driver and told him where he wanted to go.
They rode away under the stars, beyond the Bowery and straight across Brooklyn Bridge. On Columbia Heights they all got out to watch the moon rise over the harbor.
"It has been the loveliest Christmas time we've ever had together, old Giant," said Ann Caraway. "I've always wanted to ride over the bridges just the way we are riding tonight. How did you happen to think of it?"
"I'm always wandering over these bridges when I'm in New York," replied the Troll, "seeing the sun and the moon rise and the stars come out. I knew Nicholas and the others would like it and I thought you would, but I should never have been able to manage it comfortably without Gretchen and the Mysterious Taxi."
"Gretchen is a dear," said Ann Caraway. "She's always finding ways of getting things done for her friends."
The two Elves danced past them with Nicholas, and then the Brownie came rollicking along with the Irish Fairy and the Cornish Pixy.
"It does me good to hear Brownie laugh like that," said the Troll. "She ought to get away oftener."
"That's what I think about all of them," said Ann Caraway. "They've been shut up in books too long. People even forget how they look and mix them up frightfully."
"We'll take Manhattan Bridge next," said the Troll. "No Goblin has yet crossed it, I hear. I'm fond of that bridge. I have friends living near it."
"Now let's cross Brooklyn Bridge again, old Giant," begged Nicholas. "I love Brooklyn Bridge best of all the bridges."
So they rode over Brooklyn Bridge once more in the Mysterious Taxi. This time they turned about at the end of the bridge and came back the same way.
Half-way across, the Troll suddenly disappeared from the seat beside the driver.
"Where are you, old Giant?" called Nicholas.
But there was no answer to his call and the Mysterious Taxi rolled on toward Manhattan with Nicholas leaning far out of it looking for the first of his Christmas friends.
CHAPTER XV
HEROES AND VALENTINES
WITH THE HEROES
NICHOLAS made many new friends after Christmas and one of them was Jimmy Blair.
Jimmy was a little Scotch boy whose heroes all came alive to him in the pictures he saw, the stories he heard, and the people he knew.
Coming into the Children's Room of the Public Library one morning in February, Nicholas found Jimmy standing before a new picture of Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg.
"This picture is so sad I feel like crying when I look at it," said Jimmy, "but I like it because the people–the soldiers, the mothers, and the children–are all in the picture with him."
"It's a wonderful picture, Jimmy. The painting it's taken from is in the State Capitol of Pennsylvania. I know the artist who painted it. Her name is Violet Oakley and she lives near Philadelphia in a big studio made out of a barn, with an enormous fireplace and beautiful paintings on the walls. It's the highest studio I've ever seen. She climbs up on a step-ladder to paint. I went to a lovely party there, and when I climbed up on her step-ladder I saw more of her paintings–Washington on his way to the Brandywine, and William Penn. I like Philadelphia. It's all in squares. I went inside of Independence Hall. Have you ever been there, Jimmy?"
Jimmy shook his head. He was still looking intently at the picture of Lincoln.
"He doesn't look like the 'French Girl,'" he said at last, "but that picture makes me remember the picture where she's crying."
Jimmy went over to the bookshelves and taking down "Jeanne D'Arc," he opened it to Boutet de Monvel's picture of Joan of Arc crossing the battlefield. This was Jimmy's favorite book. He never read it. Jimmy didn't care about reading at all. He liked to look at the pictures and let them tell the story of the wonderful "French Girl," as he called her.
"What are you going to be when you grow up, Jimmy?" asked Nicholas.
"If there's a war I'll be a soldier," said Jimmy. "If there isn't a war I'd like to be more than one kind of a man."
They had turned away from the pictures of Lincoln and Joan of Arc, and they were now looking at pictures of brave old Saints and Knights, Soldiers and Sailors, Explorers and Scientists, Firemen and Fishermen, Engineers and Bridge Builders, Deep-Sea Divers and Miners, Aviators and Wireless Men, Doctors and Nurses–for, on Lincoln's Birthday, and all through the month of February, heroes and heroines of all times and all countries are remembered in the Children's Room.
"What are you going to be yourself, Nicholas?" asked Jimmy.
"I don't know yet," said Nicholas. "Something that hasn't been done before. Let's take a bus up Riverside Drive, Jimmy, and see if Joan of Arc is still there. She may ride off across the River and up over the Palisades any night.”...
ON BROOKLYN BRIDGE
Between the birthdays of Lincoln and Washington, St. Valentine's Day came like a second Christmas to Murray Hill. The Library Lions looked out from under a fresh fall of snow. Tulips and daffodils, and little bouquets, with lace-paper frills around them, bloomed in the windows of the flower-shops, and there were red and pink peppermint hearts at the Mirror. The Duchess got out all her old valentines, "The Happy Heart Family" appeared in the picture-book room, and the Postman brought heaps and heaps of letters, valentines and poetry books. The most exciting letter of all was this one:
THE NEIGHBORHOOD PLAYHOUSE,
GRAND STREET,
ST. VALENTINE'S EVE.
DEAR NICHOLAS,
Please be our Valentine and come to see The Toy Box in our Theatre. All the Toys turn real and dance to lovely music.
Your Friends,
THE FESTIVAL DANCERS.
P.S. Bring Ann Caraway with you.
"I saw that Pantomime one Christmas," said Ann Caraway. "I'd love to see it again on St. Valentine's Night."
"Couldn't we walk across Brooklyn Bridge before we go to the play?" proposed Nicholas. "It doesn't look very far from the Neighborhood Playhouse on my map."
So they rode down from Murray Hill, over the Bowery, on the Third Avenue L, all the way to Brooklyn Bridge. Nicholas tried ever so many ways of getting on the Bridge before he discovered the foot-path, which begins under the dingy terminal station, and leads up an incline straight out across the Bridge-of-the-Magic-Web. And as they walked on over the river, with the sea gulls flying above and below them–with the waters of the lower bay turning to silver in the sunlight and the towers of Manhattan rising higher and higher in blue and purple haze at their backs–Nicholas suddenly exclaimed:
"This Bridge is a wonder! Who built it, Ann Caraway?"
"A father and son gave their lives for it, Nicholas. It was the first of the great bridges across the East River and John Roebling, whose dream it was to build it, had to fight his way inch by inch for the chance to try to do something that had never been done before–something that all engineers of his time called visionary and impracticable. And while John Roebling kept on fighting for his dream he kept his courage high by reading Emerson and playing the flute. The man who built Brooklyn Bridge on paper was a philosopher and a musician of rare skill, as well as an architect and an engineer."
"Where did John Roebling come from?" asked Nicholas.
"Out of a little walled town in Germany," replied Ann Caraway. "His mother buried her own dreams there years before he was born, but when she saw that her youngest son was different from other boys she worked early and late to give him the education she knew he would need to make his dreams come true. She sent him first to Berlin to be educated. Then she sent him to America to seek his fortune. He never saw her again. She died soon after he sailed. And with the money his mother gave him, John Roebling bought lands in Pennsylvania and began his life in a new country as a farmer. The very first thing he did was to raise canary birds.
"But in a few years he was building suspension bridges over the Pennsylvania Canal, over the Alleghany River, over the Delaware and Hudson Canals, across the Niagara, the Kentucky, the Ohio, and finally, the East River. It was while he was making the soundings for the piers of Brooklyn Bridge, that John Roebling was fatally injured and died, leaving his son to carry out his cherished plans."
"He was lucky to have a son who could build a bridge like that," said Nicholas.
"John Roebling was as fortunate in his son as he was in his mother," said Ann Caraway, as they walked along on the Brooklyn side. "Not long after his father's death Washington Roebling was so injured that he became an invalid. But although he was unable to leave his room–for ten long years, from the upper windows of his home over here on Columbia Heights, he watched and directed the construction of the bridge."
"Washington Roebling must have had very strong spy-glasses and a telescope," said Nicholas, as they stood looking at Brooklyn Bridge from the foot of Montague Street.
"And faith in his father's dream," said Ann Caraway. "We'll be just in time for the sunset if we turn back now."
The silver lights on the harbor had turned to red and gold when they walked out over the Bridge-of-the-Magic-Web again. The sun was rolling a great ball of fire down behind the Statue of Liberty, and distant windows flashed like jewels.
"Look! Look quick, Ann Caraway!" cried Nicholas. "The Goblins are riding over Manhattan Bridge tonight!
"There they go! There they go! Some in taxis and some in trolleys!" he shouted as shiny black motors and trolley cars turned to gold midway of the bridge. Suddenly, below the flying stream of golden motors, a long glittering train appeared and ran swiftly across the bridge.
"The Fairy Mountain Limited, Nicholas," said Ann Caraway, as they stood watching it out of sight.
Then, as the sun dipped down, down over the water's edge, Nicholas ran on toward Manhattan, calling:
"There goes the sunset gun on Governor's Island and the blink-light on Robbins Reef! I see a light in the High Tower! I see another light, and another, and another. Come along, Ann Caraway! It's lighting-up time."
Straight ahead on one side of Brooklyn Bridge rose the High Tower, and on the other side the City Tower; and in one after another of their many windows the lights now began to shine.
Nicholas waited for Ann Caraway at the top of the steps leading down to the incline, and together they plunged down, down under the dingy old terminal where they could no longer see the lighted windows of the high towers. But as they walked swiftly on across all the trolley tracks, they saw, as if framed in the distance, a lovely old palace, the snow lying soft and white about it.
"There's the City Hall!" called Nicholas delightedly. "It looks just like a fairy palace from here. I think it's the prettiest building in New York."
When they stepped out into City Hall Park the silver crescent of a little new moon stood above the old clock tower, and the snow-covered roof and pillars were tinged with the rosy afterglow of the sunset.
BEYOND THE BOWERY
"The Toy Box opens when the sun goes down," said Ann Caraway. "We must hurry up to Grand Street and there isn't a taxi in sight."
"I see something better than a taxi," cried Nicholas. "There's a sleigh waiting for us out there on Broadway. It's one of the old uncles down from Harlem. He's lighting his tin lantern to hang out behind. He sees us. He's turning his horse round. Hurry up, Ann Caraway!"
And waving his spyglasses to the jolly black driver of the funny old sleigh, Nicholas ran across City Hall Park and jumped in.
By the time Ann Caraway reached the sleigh, Nicholas had put away his spyglasses and pulled out his Liberty flash-light to show to Uncle 'Rastus.
"What brought you all the way from Harlem to City Hall at sundown, Uncle 'Rastus?" Ann Caraway asked as they jingled up Park Row.
"I most generally rides down the island on a pretty day like this," replied the driver. And then he whispered to Nicholas, who was standing up to look all round, "I nevah goes up Broadway tell the Goblins cross the river. They've just gone along, honey."
"I know they have. We saw them," cried Nicholas, and down one of the shadowy streets he saw the Bridge-of-the-Magic-Web once more against a red-gold sky.
"I hear music, Uncle 'Rastus, right over our heads, but I can't see anybody playing anywhere. Where does it come from? Oh, now I see. There's a fiddler up there on the stairs of the L station. Where are we, Ann Caraway?"
"Crossing Chatham Square," said she. "The Arabian Nights Country begins right here, Nicholas, and runs east and west to the river. Sindbad the Sailor comes by Catharine Slip whenever he's in port and Aladdin lights his old lamp down here every night in the year. Drive on up the Bowery, Uncle 'Rastus."
Looking over into strange streets on one side, Nicholas could see Chinamen shuffling in and out of queer little shops and past tall tea-houses whose Oriental balconies were hung with Chinese flags and colored lanterns. A Chinese baby boy toddled round the corner of Mott and Pell Streets and was quickly caught up in his father's arms.
"He's all dressed up jes' like he's a little old Chinaman," said Uncle 'Rastus. "It's his birthday I reckon."
And then, far down a street on the other side, an Italian band began to play, and looking back, Nicholas saw the doors of dingy old houses open and the children come rushing out–hundreds of dark-eyed, laughing children, and mothers with gay shawls over their heads and babies in their arms.
Oliver Street came alive with children carrying long white candles and bright lanterns–with fathers waving American flags and Italian banners. Church doors swung open, and as one gay company passed in, another came out, leaving their candles burning.
"It's a festa! They're keeping a festa! shouted Nicholas, and he leaned far out of the sleigh for another glimpse of gay streets strung with colored lights and long bright streamers.
As Uncle 'Rastus turned east on Canal Street they were caught in a jam of traffic, and Nicholas, looking clear across Manhattan Bridge, whispered in the driver's ear, "There's where the Golden Goblins ride, Uncle 'Rastus. Drive faster, please! It's getting dark and we mustn't be late for the Toy Shop."
Then from the "frying-pans" above the pushcarts, blue-green lights began to flare out over the snowy streets, and along the curb bright fires blazed up in old tin pails and iron pots.
"I smell chestnuts roasting," shouted Nicholas. "I hear them whistling too!"
"I smells sump'fin better'n chestnuts roastin' when yo' hungry," said Uncle 'Rastus. "Inside that old tin oven on wheels, over yondah on the sidewalk, there's a big, mealy, yellow sweet 'tater roastin' away tell it cracks for Uncle 'Rastus. Has yer got the smell of a sweet 'tater, Nic'las?" he chuckled. "I don't guess you has 'em in yo' country."
Nicholas was beaming as he sniffed the air. "I smell your sweet potato roasting, Uncle 'Rastus," he cried. "It smells good but mine smells better, I'll tell the Potato Man."
"Does yer like oysters on the half-shell?" asked Uncle 'Rastus, as a pushcart of oysters crossed the street in front of them.
"Somebody on the next corner is stopping the Oyster Man," said Nicholas. "They're having a little party over there. One, two–three–four of them standing round the pushcart eating oysters. It's like a picnic. Where do all the crowds of people come from, Ann Caraway?"
"From their own little towns, and villages, and farms across the sea," replied Ann Caraway. "They come here straight from the ship, Nicholas. They've been coming for three hundred years."
"Do they bring the pushcarts with them?" asked Nicholas.
"No, they bring only their dreams for their children with them. They find the pushcarts all about here. Right where the Knickerbockers' farms and gardens and orchards and duck ponds used to be."
A pushcart piled high with golden oranges, with a little cow bell dangling from it, moved out from Orchard Street just then.
"It must be fun to have a pushcart of your own with a cow bell on it," said Nicholas, gazing wistfully down that fascinating street.
"What would you sell on yours, Uncle 'Rastus, if you had one?" he asked.
"I'd sell red flannels and nice warm blankets in Winter time, jes' like that one," said Uncle 'Rastus, as another pushcart laden with bright colored blankets, with a line of red flannel undershirts waving high above it, passed close beside the sleigh.
"There's the prettiest baby girl fast asleep on those blankets!" exclaimed Nicholas. "Her father and mother must be taking her home to put her to bed. Look, Ann Caraway! they've stopped to put some money in the crippled organ grinder's cup. He's playing another tune. It's sadder than the one he played before. Do they always play sad tunes down here, Uncle 'Rastus?"
"No, indeedy, honey!" exclaimed Uncle 'Rastus, "you'll hear the Hurdy Gurdy Man playin' very lively when Spring comes ridin' up East River. He sets all the children dancin' in the streets round yere."
"What would you sell on your pushcart in Summer time, Uncle 'Rastus?"
"I'd sell ice cream cones in Summer," said Uncle 'Rastus, "tell I got rich, an' then I'd buy one o' these yere carrousels an' hitch my old Job up to it an' be a Penny Ride Man. Old Job'll stand anywheres without hitchin'. He likes standin' an' he likes chillun. I'll give free penny rides to all the chillun who has no pennies when I'm a Penny Ride Man."
"It'll be lots of fun," said Nicholas. "I'd like to be a Penny Ride Man myself, but I haven't any horse."
"We're coming to the Playhouse now, Uncle 'Rastus," said Ann Caraway, at the corner of Pitt Street.
Old Job stopped in front of a red brick house with white trimmings, green shutters, green doors and little fir trees on its roof.
"Good bye, Uncle 'Rastus! good bye, Job! Thank you very much. I'm coming up to ride round Harlem with you some day."
"Good bye, Nic'las! Good bye! I'll tell my chillun yo' shorely comin'," Uncle 'Rastus called back as Nicholas and Ann Caraway disappeared inside the green door.
THE TOY BOX
"Has the play begun?" Ann Caraway asked at the box office window.
"Almost!" came the reply. "They're holding the curtain for Nicholas. Your seats are right center, down front."
"Quick, Nicholas! the lights are off already," whispered Ann Caraway as they entered the theatre. It was pitch-dark, and so still, that at first it seemed empty. But as Nicholas ran down the aisle with his flash-light, he saw that the theatre was filled with children. The curtain went up just as he slipped into his seat and the stage was dark as night.
"I can't see a thing!" whispered a boy behind Nicholas.
But Nicholas could see. And Nicholas saw something that happened there in the darkness. It was the middle of the night in the Toy Shop, and down from the top shelf of all jumped a strange little figure, who ran lightly across the floor and touching something in a far corner, ran back to his place again. And then a little phonograph began to play the waking up tunes of all the toys. The lights came on and the children could see everything that was happening in the Toy Shop. It was a lovely Toy Shop. Balloons were hanging up in bunches, and the most wonderful toys came dancing down from the shelves, and out of their boxes, just the way you would think they would at a party.
Everybody came: a Harlequin, two Elephants, a Sparrow, a Shepherdess with her lambs, a Goose Girl with her geese and a Circus Rider on her horse. The Rag Doll, the Wooden Doll, the Chinese Doll, and the Paper Dolls danced delightfully, and the Spinning Top was enchanting, but the loveliest dancer of them all was the French Doll. The Toy Soldier was in love with her, and no wonder. Another Soldier was in love with her, too, and so was the Sailor and Jack-in-the Box, but the French Doll liked the Toy Soldier best and so did Nicholas. He liked him so much that when the clock struck four, and the lights grew dim, and the dancing stopped, Nicholas felt very sad and lonely for he thought that he would never see the Toy Soldier again. But he was mistaken, for just as the curtain fell on the Toy Shop for the last time, a door beside Nicholas opened, and there stood the Toy Soldier.
Signalling to Nicholas to follow, he disappeared from the doorway and ran back into the Toy Shop.
BEHIND THE TOY SHOP
Nicholas slipped out of his seat, and closing the door behind him, ran after the Toy Soldier. The Toy Shop was quite deserted, only the balloons were hanging there in the dim light, and in the far corner the little phonograph stood strangely silent.
"Where are they? Where have they all gone?" gasped Nicholas, as he clattered across the stage in his wooden shoes.
"The Queen of Hearts sent me to bring you to the party in her Garden, Nicholas. It's over the roof. That's where the others have gone, and this is the way they went."
And taking Nicholas by the hand, the Toy Soldier ran with him out of the Toy Shop by another door and up the long stairway to the roof.
"See all their tracks in the snow," he whispered as they stepped out under the stars.
"We're right over the theatre now.... And now we're over the stage; they ran over our heads when we came through the Toy Shop.... This is the way to the Garden," and the Toy Soldier opened a door leading to another stairway....
"Would you like to see my dressing-room?" he asked. "I share it with the Elephants."
Two Elephants were just crawling out of their gray wrinkly skins when Nicholas peeped into the dressing-room.
"Please wait for us," they called to the Toy Soldier. "We're coming to the party for Nicholas."
"All right, we'll wait for you," Nicholas called back.
So while they waited for the Elephants, the Toy Soldier led Nicholas into a big shadowy room with every kind of a wonderful costume hanging up in it.
"You can be anything you'd like to be when you come here to play," the Toy Soldier explained as they stood there looking around.
"Why, Nicholas, I thought you were lost and so I came out to find you," a sweet voice murmured in his ear, and when Nicholas looked up, the Queen of Hearts was standing close beside him.
THE QUEEN OF HEARTS
She was dressed all in white, but instead of a gold crown, she wore a wreath of scarlet berries on her soft brown hair, and over her shoulders a silken scarf of cherry scarlet. On her feet were golden shoes and from her girdle hung a bunch of slender golden keys. Nicholas thought her face was one of the loveliest he had ever seen, and when she gave one hand to him and the other to the Toy Soldier he was radiantly happy.
"Do you live here?" he asked, as they walked out of the room where all the costumes were hanging.
"Yes, I live here," replied the Queen of Hearts. "Would you like to look into my Toy Room?" and she fitted one of the golden keys into the lock of a door they were passing.
"There's everything and more here!" said the Queen of Hearts. And when the lights came on, Nicholas found himself in a perfectly fascinating room with a big Russian fireplace.
"The toys come from every country in the world,” said the Toy Soldier. "We have wonderful times playing with them, but we can't stop to play now. We're going to a party.”
"We must wait for the Elephants," said Nicholas. "I promised we would. Do you think they can find us?" he asked the Queen of Hearts as they walked on down the dim corridor.
"I'm sure they can," she replied.
And then she said, "Now, I'll show you the most wonderful toy of all," and she unlocked the door of another room. It was quite dark, and when Nicholas raised his Liberty flash-light, he saw that it was a very small room with but one toy in it–a toy theatre.
"It's just like the big theatre downstairs," explained the Toy Soldier. "There are red, white, and blue lights and when I turn them on you can see any fairy tale you'd like to see."
"I'd like to see 'The Tinder Box'," said Nicholas.
No sooner were the words out of his mouth than the lights flashed, and a Soldier with his knapsack on his back and a sabre by his side came marching across the little stage–one, two! one, two! straight past the old Witch who stood beside the hollow tree....
The Soldier had let himself down into the mysterious hall inside the tree and was just unlocking the third door, behind which was the strange-eyed dog who guarded the chest of gold, when the two Elephants came running in. They were out of their skins now and could clap their hands with delight when the old Witch drew the Soldier up out of the tree, with pockets, boots, knapsack, and cap full of shining gold pieces.
And after that the Soldier cut off the head of the Witch and put the tinder-box in his pocket and marched off the stage....
"There isn't time to finish the play," said the Queen of Hearts, "for I hear the children calling Nicholas in the Garden."
So the Toy Soldier turned off the lights of the toy theatre, and the Queen of Hearts locked the door of the little room, and they walked on down the dim corridor.
"It must be fun to have a little theatre like that," said Nicholas wistfully. "Have you had it long?"
"Not so very long," said the Queen of Hearts, "but I've dreamed of having it ever since I knew Hans Andersen had one. The Playhouse is a dream, too–an old, old dream, Nicholas, for it stands on an old Dutch farm. There was an orchard, and a garden with tulips, and green fields where the wild strawberries grew. The Dutch boys and girls used to have strawberry picnics here, and the English girls and boys hung May baskets to each other at the doors of the old houses in Henry Street.
"And then, Nicholas, all the other children came with their songs and their dances and their festivals. It's just the place for a Playhouse, you see. Everybody comes back to play here."
"I'm coming back, too!" exclaimed Nicholas. "I'm coming often."
THE VALENTINE
The Toy Soldier disappeared down a steep stairway and throwing open a door at the bottom, he called: "Nicholas is coming! Nicholas is coming! Nicholas is coming with the Queen of Hearts and the Elephants!"
And then such shouts went up! "Nicholas! Nicholas! We want to see Nicholas! Here he comes! Here comes Nicholas!"
The Rag Doll, the Paper Dolls, the Wooden Doll and the French Doll danced out through the Garden to meet him, and the Roly Poly and the little Lucky-pup rolled over and over with joy. The Shepherdess, the Goose Girl, the Circus Rider in spangles, the Jack-in-the-Box, and all the others, rushed to welcome Nicholas with shouts of "Valentine! Valentine! Nicholas is our Valentine!"
Suddenly Nicholas caught sight of Harlequin perched up beside the Sparrow on the railing of the little balcony. "I know who you are," shouted Nicholas. "You're the one who waked up all the others in the Toy Shop. Come down here! I want to play with you."
Down from the balcony capered Harlequin, and then such handsprings as he and Nicholas and the Toy Soldier turned in the Queen of Hearts' Garden.
"I've never seen a garden like this one before," said Nicholas, as they all three sat on a high-backed green seat which Harlequin told Nicholas could turn itself into a table whenever it wanted to.
"An artist made the garden for us. I think it's a pretty one, don't you?"
"I like the cottage with the straw roof and the green wooden shutters best of all," said Nicholas. "It looks like a fairy-tale house. What's inside, Harlequin?"
"Just you wait and you'll see," replied Harlequin. "It's a secret."
"Jack-in-the-Box is rubbing his stomach over there by the fire. Are you hungry, Nicholas?" asked the Toy Soldier.
Nicholas beamed and waved his hand to Jack-in-the-Box.
"Fee-fi-fo-fum
I smell tea without any rum."
sang Harlequin. "It's Russian tea. I'll fetch you a glass," and Harlequin ran over to the corner where the big copper samovar stood. He was back again in a jiffy, with tall glasses of amber-colored tea with thin slices of lemon and a gay bowl of cut sugar. And as Nicholas and the Toy Soldier sat there sipping their hot Russian tea, Nicholas suddenly spied Ann Caraway at one of the tables, half hidden by a tall fir tree.
"She's talking to someone behind that tree," said Nicholas. "Oh, now I see who it is, it's the Sailor, the Sailor! He must have brought Ann Caraway over the roof."
The Sailor slipped out from behind the tree just then, and throwing a log of driftwood on the fire, he began to dance a hornpipe. And Nicholas, watching him, forgot to drink his Russian tea, forgot the strange garden, forgot even the Toy Soldier beside him....
Suddenly the Sailor stopped dancing. The green shutters on the thatched cottage flew open and the French Doll leaned out with a tray of cherry tarts.
"The Queen of Hearts
She made some tarts
All on St. Valentine's Day–"
All for you, Nicholas, all for you!" she called.
A second pair of shutters flew open and out leaped the Circus Rider, with both hands full of gingerbread boys, and after her the Wooden Doll came clattering by, with a pewter plate of Dutch cakes for Nicholas. Then the Shepherdess and the Goose Girl brought great platters piled high with heart-shaped sandwiches for everybody.
When the third pair of shutters flew open the little Chinese Doll hopped out, with a basket of almond cakes and tiny oranges and strange nuts with plums in them. And from the last window of all, the two Paper Dolls stepped cautiously down, bearing a marvellous Valentine cake for Nicholas. Everybody had put in the thing they thought he would like best. Everybody had given it a stir and the result was truly remarkable.
"Nicholas wants to dance with everyone before he cuts his cake," said the Toy Soldier and turning to Nicholas he whispered, "It's a dream cake, you know."
So Harlequin leaped up into the balcony where the flowers were and played the Nicholas dance.
It began like an old Dutch jigg but it kept changing and changing, as Nicholas changed partners, until, at last, he danced with the lovely Queen of Hearts.
The music grew very soft and dreamlike then and they seemed to be sailing away and away to one country after another....
"We're in China now, and the little Nightingale is singing, in the Emperor's garden," murmured the Queen of Hearts....
And, then in the balcony right above their heads, the Sparrow began to chirp and twitter, the Lambs to call maa, maa, the Geese to hiss and splutter, the Circus Rider's Horse to neigh. And the Toy Soldier, the Sailor and the Elephants, the Jack-in-the-Box, the French Doll, the Wooden Doll, the Rag Doll and all the others began to dance in a ring around Nicholas and the Queen of Hearts shouting:
"Nicholas is our Valentine,
Nicholas is our Valentine,
He's coming ev'ry year."
Then Nicholas knew it was time to go home. So, while they all stood round, he cut the Valentine dream cake, and everyone slept that night with a piece of it under his pillow.
CHAPTER XVI
CELEBRATING WASHINGTON'S BIRTHDAY
THE HIGH TOWER
ON the morning of Washington's Birthday, Jimmy, Nicholas, and Ann Caraway set forth for the High Tower.
It was a clear blue day on Manhattan Island, with a touch of Spring in the air. The snow was nearly gone; men with trays of roses, violets, and flame-colored sweet peas appeared at the street corners; and great flocks of pigeons were flying over the city towers.
"I'd like to be taking a hop today, wouldn't you, Jimmy?" said Nicholas.
"By the time you've reached the tip-top of the High Tower you'll feel as if you were," said Ann Caraway.
The Broadway car stopped directly in front of the Woolworth Building, and when the doors flew open Nicholas and Jimmy got out and stood on the curb to look up at the High Tower. Then they followed Ann Caraway inside and stepped into the first elevator. The elevator shot up, up, up to the fifty-fourth floor of the tower. There they took a second elevator and the second elevator shot up to the tip-top of the High Tower.
"We must be in the sky," said Jimmy when the elevator stopped.
But the blue sky and the shining sun were still high above their heads when they stepped out on the platform of the High Tower.
"Look down, Jimmy! Look down!" cried Nicholas. "The people down there in the street look like children playing with trains of cars and toy taxis; and there's a toy village with a church."
Then Nicholas began to count the bridges–all the way from Brooklyn Bridge to High Bridge.
Jimmy was watching the toy ferry-boats in the harbor when, suddenly, he saw an ocean liner sail down the bay.
"What ship is that, Nicholas?" he asked.
Nicholas put up his spy-glasses and took a long look. "It's the Majestic, but it doesn't look any bigger than the old Clermont."
"Here comes the Guard of the High Tower, Nicholas! Let's ask him how far we can see," and away ran Jimmy round the platform, for the Guard had stopped to speak to Ann Caraway.
"How far can we see from here, sir?" asked Jimmy.
"A round hundred miles on a clear day if you've good eyesight and know what to look for," replied the Guard of the High Tower. "Are you boys looking for anything special?"
"We just want to see where George Washington came from and where he went," said Nicholas. "It's his birthday you know. I brought my spy-glasses. I'd like to see the Potomac River and Mount Vernon. Which way is Virginia?"
The Guard of the High Tower pointed South. "Virginia lies just beyond that bit of blue sky," he said. "It isn't very far away, no further off than Massachusetts, over there to the North."
"I'd like to see the Rappahannock and the old farm where Washington learned to ride horseback," said Jimmy. "He was always riding horseback, Nicholas. George Washington was the best rider in the whole country."
"Everywhere you look from up here," said the Guard of the High Tower, "you can see places Washington rode over."
"Out from Philadelphia, with a troop of Light Horse, straight on through New Jersey he came riding to take command of the army. He got off his horse at Jersey City and stepped aboard a barge to come over to Manhattan. He rode up Broadway in a carriage. That night the General slept at King's Bridge. Early next morning he mounted his horse again and rode away through Westchester and Connecticut to Boston. All along the road the people came out to say how glad they were to see him coming."
"How long did he stay in Boston?" asked Jimmy.
"Less than a year," replied the Guard of the High Tower. "When General Washington found out that the British ships were planning to sail out of Boston Harbor, he knew it was time to start for New York with his army."
"Where were his ships?" asked Nicholas.
"Washington didn't have any ships, Nicholas," replied Jimmy. "There wasn't any navy in America then."
"But he brought Colonel Glover along, with his Gloucester and Marblehead fishermen," said the Guard of the High Tower. "Wonderful fellows, those fishermen! They manned the boats after the battle of Long Island–brought ten thousand men across East River one dark night in a fog so thick you couldn't cut it. Last of all they brought General Washington himself. He wouldn't leave a man behind.
"When the British woke up next morning they had the surprise of their lives. They counted, you see, on taking New York from Brooklyn Heights but the General led them a chase the length of Manhattan, when he moved up to the big white house on Harlem Heights."
"Which way is Harlem Heights?" asked Nicholas, putting up his spy-glasses.
The Guard of the High Tower pointed North over church steeples and skyscrapers.
"The old white house is still up there," he said. "It was ten miles out of the city then but you can go there any day on a St. Nicholas bus."
"The British didn't let Washington stay in that white house long," said Jimmy. "They called him the old fox and they were always trying to catch him, but they never did."
"No, they never caught him," repeated the Guard of the High Tower. "But they drove him hither and yon all about here for seven years while they held New York. And for seven long years the General never took his eyes off this Island. Wherever he went he was always planning to come riding down Broadway again, to set the city free." And then the old Guard added, "New York has a right to remember Washington's Birthday, the best right in the world."
THE SOLDIER AT ST. PAUL'S
When they came down to the street again, Nicholas exclaimed, "Why, there's the toy church! Let's go inside, Ann Caraway." They walked into St. Paul's by the back door.
"When St. Paul's turned her back to Broadway and faced the harbor she had a wonderful view clear to North River," said Ann Caraway, as they walked down the broad aisle of the church to the front door. "If you had been standing here on the front steps of St. Paul's, Nicholas, when George Washington came back from Mount Vernon to be President of the United States, you would have seen a great row-boat crossing over from the Jersey shore, with Commodore Nicholson steering it, and thirteen pilots–all of them captains of ships–in white uniforms, at the oars. You would have seen all the ships in the harbor dressed in colors, and you would have heard all the ships at anchor saluting the procession as it swept up the bay. And when you saw the boats coming you would have taken to your heels, and running as fast as ever you could, you would have run down to the foot of Wall Street to see George Washington land."
"I've seen that picture of Washington coming to New York," said Jimmy.
"Where did he go first, when he landed?" asked Nicholas.
"He went to the Governor's house in Queen Street," said Ann Caraway, "and he insisted on walking there from Murray's Wharf."
"Did he begin to be President that night?" asked Nicholas.
"George Washington had to take the President's oath and kiss the Bible first, Nicholas," said Jimmy, "and they had to get things ready for him. One morning at sunrise he heard the guns going off at the Battery and bye and bye a big procession came to his house on Cherry Hill and marched him off to Wall Street.
"And George Washington climbed up into the balcony of the old City Hall and stood there bowing with his hand on his heart. People were so glad to see him they laughed and cried and shouted. He almost cried himself and he had to sit down before he could say anything. Then he stood up and put his hand on the Bible and repeated the President's oath and after that he kissed the Bible. Then he was President."
"What happened next?" asked Nicholas.
"I don't know," said Jimmy.
"Do you know, Ann Caraway?" asked Nicholas.
"They put up a flag on the cupola of the old City Hall for a signal, and all the guns went off down at the Battery, and all the bells in the city rang, and the people all shouted for joy. and the old City Hall became Federal Hall and the first President of the United States went inside to read his first Inaugural Address. As soon as he had finished he walked up to St. Paul's with the Congress. There were special services in all the churches that day.
"There is a special service here today. Some English visitors have brought a birthday wreath from Sulgrave Manor–the home of George Washington's ancestors in England. Shall we stay for the ceremony?"
Both boys wanted to see the wreath placed over Washington's pew, so they entered the church again, and Jimmy led the way to one of the deep old pews and ushered them in to wait for the service to begin.
"This church looks older than Trinity Church," said Nicholas.
"St. Paul's is much older than the Trinity Church you have seen, Nicholas," said Ann Caraway. "When we speak of Old Trinity we go way back in our minds to the very first church that ever stood at the head of Wall Street. The nation as well as the city began in New York, and when we come down to St. Paul's and think about Washington we are near enough to feel the first beat of its heart."
"Look, Nicholas!" whispered Jimmy, "Washington has sent a Soldier down for his birthday."
An old man in the uniform of a soldier of the Continental Army had taken a seat directly behind the square pew where Washington used to sit.
Nicholas whispered to Ann Caraway, and as she looked across the old church where Washington had come on his Inauguration Day, it seemed to her that it suddenly became filled with soldiers. And these soldiers were not all wearing the uniforms of the Continental Army, many of them wore no uniforms at all, they came in rags, with bleeding feet–great companies of them,–from North, South, East, and West–to see the leader of their scattered armies become the leader of a new nation.
"We couldn't have had a country without Washington, could we?" said Jimmy, as they stood on the front steps of St. Paul's again watching the old soldier in his faded uniform and cocked hat walk down through the churchyard and out of sight.
"That's what the soldiers of his armies all thought, Jimmy," said Ann Caraway. "They trusted Washington as they trusted no one else."
And while Ann Caraway lingered in the old churchyard, still dreaming of the soldiers of Washington's armies, Nicholas and Jimmy ran on down Broadway.
THE TAVERN BY THE FERRY
"There's Washington waiting for us, Nicholas!" called Jimmy, as they turned down Wall Street in sight of the Sub-Treasury. "This is the place where he stood when he took the President's oath up in the balcony of the old City Hall. I've been here to see him before."
"He looks as if he was waiting for somebody to come down that street in front of him," said Nicholas.
"And so he is, Nicholas," said Ann Caraway, who had caught up with them. "He is watching for his officers to come that way. It was a little way down that street that his life as a soldier ended when he said farewell to them at Fraunces Tavern. Washington will always stand watching and waiting in this spot as nowhere else in the country."
"I'm glad we came to see him on his birthday, Ann Caraway," said Nicholas. "He must be lonesome, it's so quiet here. I thought Wall Street was a busy street."
"Not on Sundays and holidays," replied Ann Caraway. "Then it's quieter than a country village and it becomes little old New York again. We are going to the Tavern by the Ferry for luncheon. Would you like to race down Broad Street? Catch Nicholas if you can, Jimmy. One, two, three. Go!"
By the time Ann Caraway reached Fraunces Tavern, the boys had rung the bell, and a man in powdered wig and blue and buff uniform was standing at the open door.
Nicholas and Jimmy said they were very hungry, so they sat down at one of the little tables in the cosy dining-room and waited for their English mutton chops to be broiled over the coals. They were just finishing a delicious deep-dish apple pie with cream when Ann Caraway said, "Wouldn't you and Jimmy like to go right up to the 'Long Room,' Nicholas? I'll join you there."
So Nicholas and Jimmy stole up the staircase of the old tavern and entered the "Long Room" on tiptoe, half expecting to see General Washington still standing there with all his officers.
Bright fires burned in the two fireplaces and the spacious old room was flooded with February sunshine. On the long table stood a tall pewter pitcher filled with deep red roses. Two or three high-backed chairs were drawn up to the table but there was no other furniture in the room.
"I'm glad there's nobody here," said Nicholas. "It's a fine place for stories. Tell me some more about George Washington, Jimmy."
So the two boys stretched out on the hearth rug, and Jimmy told Nicholas about the Christmas Night Washington crossed the Delaware, and then he told him of Valley Forge....
There were tears in Jimmy's blue eyes before he finished and a big lump in his throat. Both boys looked steadily into the fire for a few minutes without saying a word.
"General Washington cried when he said good-bye to his officers in this room, Nicholas–he cried and they cried because they thought they would never see each other again. They didn't know, you see, that he was coming back to be President of the United States. General Washington didn't know it himself."
"Where was George Washington going from here, Jimmy?" asked Nicholas.
"Back to Mount Vernon to see his horses and dogs and look after his farm. He'd been away fighting for eight years and he wanted terribly to go home only he hated to leave the men who had helped him save the country. He kissed every officer good-bye, Nicholas."
"It was very near to Christmas the day they met here," said Ann Caraway, "the day before St. Nicholas Eve, Nicholas. I'm sure there were roses blooming in his library at Mount Vernon when he came home that Christmas Eve, for Washington loved flowers–he even gave the country a new rose, which he cultivated himself and named for his mother the Mary Washington rose."
Nicholas and Jimmy jumped up from the hearth rug and ran over to the table.
"Are these Mary Washington roses?" asked Nicholas.
"No," said Ann Caraway. "These roses have bloomed since Washington's time, but they seem to belong to him and his generals on his birthday for they are called Crusader roses."
"Let's walk down to Whitehall now," said Jimmy, "to the place where Washington's boat waited for him."
WASHINGTON'S COACH
"I'd like to see the house where George Washington lived when he came back to be President," said Nicholas.
"The house isn't there," said Ann Caraway, "but we'll go to see the place where it used to be if you like."
So they walked along the water front past Fulton Ferry, and when they came to one of the great stone piers of Brooklyn Bridge, Ann Caraway said: "If you had been standing right where you are now, Jimmy, on the morning of December twelfth, 1789, you would have seen a canary-colored coach, drawn by six prancing white horses dash up to the President's house.
"And when the door opened, you would have seen President Washington come out and walk down the stone steps with Mrs. Washington, with little Nelly Custis and her brother following on behind. And when they were all inside the gay coach, you would have seen it roll out of Franklin Square along Queen (Pearl) Street and turn up Wall Street, past Federal Hall, but you couldn't have run after it to hang on behind, Jimmy, because two mounted officers were following. If you had waited to see the President come back, you would have waited a long time for they were off on 'the Fourteen Mile Ride,' all the way up Bowery Lane, over Murray Hill, beyond the old Kissing Bridge.
"The coachman crossed over to the West Side somewhere in Harlem and drove along down the old Bloomingdale Road to Bowery Lane, and back to the President's house in time for dinner at four o'clock."
"I would have waited round all day to see George Washington," said Jimmy.
"How do you know that George Washington took that ride, Ann Caraway?" asked Nicholas.
"Because he wrote about it in his diary," said Ann Caraway. "George Washington wrote things down in little leather books just the way you do, Nicholas. That's the way we know that he often rode up to Harlem Heights on horseback, that his favorite walk was round the Battery, who he invited to sit in his box at the theatre in John Street, and when he went to a ball. Washington went to the Circus too, Nicholas. He once paid 'nine shillings to a man who brought an elk as a show.' There wasn't any Zoo then."
"Did he live in New York long?" asked Nicholas.
"A little over a year," replied Ann Caraway. "He thought Franklin Square was too far out of the City and so he moved into a big house on Broadway near Rector Street. The French Minister had been living there. Washington always knew just how he wanted his house to look inside, and he spent his birthday planning the arrangement of everything. The President gave a dinner party every Thursday. Every Friday night, Mrs. Washington held a reception. Everybody came who wanted to come and they all went home at ten o'clock.
"Washington filled a great many little books with all the different things he did every day and he wrote long letters to his friends."
"I'd like to see one of his books," said Nicholas. "Are they kept in the City Hall?"
"Let's go there and find out," proposed Jimmy. "I've never been inside the City Hall."
THE CAPTAIN AT CITY HALL
"There are five doors, Jimmy," counted Nicholas, as they mounted the broad steps of the City Hall. "Which one shall we try first?"
"There's a door for every borough," replied Jimmy. "I live in Brooklyn. Let's try the Brooklyn door." But the Brooklyn door was double-bolted and barred.
"Try the Manhattan door, Nicholas," called Jimmy.
Nicholas grasped the handle of the Manhattan door, but that was fast locked too, and so were the doors of The Bronx and Richmond and Queens.
"The City Hall doors are always locked on Sundays and holidays," Ann Caraway explained, as the two boys came slowly down the steps looking very much disappointed. "But the Captain is always here," she said. "He stands over there, just beyond the new Liberty Pole, watching for his General to come riding down Broadway."
"Why, Captain LeClair!" exclaimed Ann Caraway a moment later, when a dark-eyed soldierly looking young man advanced to greet her from beside the statue of Nathan Hale. "What brings you here?"
"The General's Birthday," the Captain replied, and shaking hands with Nicholas and Jimmy, he added, "I always come to see the Captain on the General's Birthday. I want him to know that we don't forget him."
"Will you tell us about the Captain, sir?" asked Nicholas. "Why is the rope round his ankles and why are his arms tied behind his back?"
"He was a very brave soldier, Nicholas. You must know his story, Jimmy."
"I'd like to hear it again," said Jimmy. "Please tell it to us, Captain LeClair."
"Tell me first where you found the helmet, Nicholas," replied the Captain, touching Nicholas's helmet with a far-away look in his eyes. "Was it in the Argonne? at Chateau Thierry? or at Belleau Wood?"
Nicholas shook his head, and looking straight into the young Captain's eyes he saw that he had been a Soldier in France and then he knew that Captain LeClair would understand all about the children whose homes had been destroyed.
And so Nicholas told the Captain where he had found the helmet and why he was still wearing it, and when he had finished the Captain looked wonderfully happy.
"I understand," he said. "I'm glad you came, Nicholas. You shall go into the City Hall to see the General and his friends, and afterward I'll tell you and Jimmy the story of Nathan Hale."
"The City Hall is locked, sir," said Jimmy. "Every single one of the five doors is locked fast."
"But those are just the everyday doors," replied the Captain. "You'll find another door at the back with a perfectly enormous keyhole. Run on ahead and take a look!"
Away ran Nicholas and Jimmy to the back door of the City Hall.
They were taking turns at peeping through the big keyhole when the Captain appeared with Ann Caraway. Putting his hand deep down in his pocket, the Captain drew forth a large iron key with a singular twist in it, and running lightly up the steps he fitted it into the lock.
Nicholas and Jimmy were amazed to see the door open at the first turn of the key.
With a merry twinkle in his eye the Captain stepped across the threshold with the two boys.
"I've always known someone must have the magic key," murmured Ann Caraway, as she closed the door and ran up the opposite side of the same circular staircase the others were climbing.
"See all the flags hanging up there in the dome, Ann Caraway!" exclaimed Nicholas when they met on the landing. "I like the winding stairs and the crystal chandeliers."
Then the Captain took another key from his pocket and with it he unlocked the door of the Governor's Room.
"Here's the General, Nicholas. The bravest and the truest of them all," said the Captain under his breath, as they walked over to the fireplace at one end of the beautiful room.
"He's standing beside the fine gray horse he rode into New York on Evacuation Day. Broadway lies in ruins behind him and the British ships are sailing out of the Harbor in front of him."
"It was a great day, Jimmy, the day the General came riding into the Capital of New York State with the Governor. New York City was a sorry-looking place after two big fires and seven years of foreign occupation, but it still held the key to the Empire State and both the General and the Governor knew it."
"What kind of a horse did the Governor ride?" asked Jimmy. "I don't see any horse in his picture," and Jimmy ran over to the fire place at the opposite end of the room for a closer look at the Governor.
"The Governor rode a splendid bay," replied Captain LeClair. "The artist gave him his sword and his Continental uniform, Jimmy, but he must have forgotten how Governor Clinton's horse looked."
Nicholas had turned to follow Jimmy, but midway of the long room he stopped short.
"Who is he, Ann Caraway, the one who stands there speaking with his hands? He sees something wonderful–something he knows is coming true. What does he see and what is he talking about?"
"I always seem to hear his voice down here," Ann Caraway replied. "'The Little Lion' was a great wonder, Nicholas. He could see things long before they happened. He made his first great speech in City Hall Park and he's been speaking here ever since. He was a college boy of seventeen when he made the speech that roused New York to arms.
"Alexander Hamilton was a born fighter and he always knew what he was fighting for. He fought with his flashing eyes, his wonderful voice, his keen-edged sword, and his powerful pen. He fought for the great future he saw for the United States of America, and he never stopped fighting."
"That's why they called him 'The Little Lion,'" said Captain LeClair, "and that's why the General called him 'my boy,' and even the Governor listened to him at last, when he fought for the Federal Ship.
"The story of his life is as marvellous as any fairy tale you ever heard, Jimmy–blown on the wings of a great wind from the island in the West Indies where he was born, his ship in flames in mid-ocean, Alexander Hamilton came to Manhattan Island to be educated and fell in love with a new country before she was born.
"King's College (Columbia University) was close to Old Trinity then, the City Hall stood down in Wall Street, there was just a stretch of green fields between here and St. Paul's. They called it 'The Fields.' All the big meetings were held in 'The Fields.' 'The Little Lion' made his famous speech here [July 6, 1774]."
Captain LeClair raised one of the wide windows of the Governor's Room, and beckoning to Nicholas and Jimmy they all stepped out on the balcony of the City Hall.
"Here's where Captain Hamilton drilled the 'Hearts of Oak,' Jimmy, before the General took command, and here's where the General himself stood listening when the Declaration of Independence was read to his troops for the first time [July 9, 1776]."
"I'm glad they planted the new Liberty Pole here," said Ann Caraway. "The mainmast is a Douglas fir, Nicholas, and the topmast a pine tree from Maine."
"Ben Star would give anything to see that Liberty Pole," exclaimed Nicholas, "he loves the Pine Tree State.
"Where does the Subway begin, Captain LeClair? It's close to the City Hall on my map."
"You'll find the very spot at the bottom of the front steps," said Captain LeClair.
"Let's go look for it!" cried Jimmy. "We can come back here again Fourth of July, Nicholas."
"Where shall we go now?" Ann Caraway asked the Captain as they walked slowly back through the Governor's Room.
"To Van Cortlandt's," the Captain replied. "The General slept there, you know, the night before he rode into New York with the Governor. He often stayed there. Have you ever been to Van Cortlandt's?"
"Never," said Ann Caraway. "I've always meant to go. Can you spare the time to go with us, Captain LeClair?"
"This is the General's Day," said the Captain, locking the door of the City Hall, "I always go where I'm sure to find him and Van Cortlandt's is one of the places."
THE SUBWAY
"We've found it!" cried Nicholas. "We've found the spot where the Subway began, and the name of the Engineer."
"Nicholas hasn't had a ride in the Subway yet," said Jimmy, springing up from the brass tablet, where he and Nicholas were stretched out at full length to read the names and the date of the beginning of the Subway [1900].
"Couldn't we go for a ride, Captain LeClair? I have two nickels."
"Why, so have I!" responded Captain LeClair. "We'll begin where the Subway begins and ride as far as it goes," and the Captain led the way down a very steep stairway into a place that looked to Nicholas like a chapel without any stained glass windows.
"It's different from the other Subway stations," said Jimmy, "but the turnstile is just the same. It opens with a nickel, Nicholas. Watch me work it!" and placing a nickel in the slot with the little light burning beside it, Jimmy passed through the turnstile.
"Your turn next, Nicholas!" he called, handing him the other nickel.
So Nicholas dropped a nickel in the slot where the little red hand was pointing, and round whirled the turnstile again.
"Do you take on many passengers at this station?" Ann Caraway asked the Guard of the Subway train as they stepped aboard.
"Oh, yes," the Guard replied. "They all get on here with their marriage licenses. Some days it's full of folks."
And then all the doors of the Subway cars shut tight and the wheels began to grind, and the train went roaring along under City Hall Park, under the Bowery, under Murray Hill, to the Grand Central Station.
There they got out and played a game called: "Follow the Green Line." Crowds of people were playing it.
"That was lots of fun," exclaimed Nicholas breathlessly, as he followed Jimmy into the shuttle train which connects the East Side Subway with the West Side.
"Step lively! Step lively!" called the Subway Guards, while Nicholas chuckled with delight. "Step lively! Step lively!" he called to Ann Caraway.
"Watch your step! Watch your step!" shouted Jimmy. After a very short ride in the shuttle train they played another game of "Follow the Green Line" at Times Square.
"Here comes our train,” exclaimed the Captain, as a long train burning two red headlights thundered into the station.
"It's the Van Cortlandt train," cried Jimmy, as the doors opened. "Let's go way up front, Captain LeClair!" So they walked through the long train to the first car and rode up under Broadway.
"Broadway is the longest street in the world, Nicholas," said Ann Caraway. "It runs from the Old Green clear to the Fairy Mountains."
Nicholas nodded but said never a word. He was watching the changing lights–red, blue, green, white and yellow; and the shining rails, forever disappearing in the dark tunnel ahead; and the marvellous trains which went thundering by–now on a track above–now on a track below–sending showers of sparks and blue flame from their flying wheels.
Suddenly the Van Cortlandt train ran out of the dark tunnel–far out upon a high trestle, and Nicholas stared in amazement as the Palisades rose up before him.
"Where are we, Ann Caraway?" he gasped. "Are we still in the Subway?"
"Just above old Manhattanville," said she. "We're over Broadway now."
"And now we're back under Broadway," shouted Jimmy, as the train shot down into the dark tunnel again.
"This is 'the Over and Under Country,' Nicholas. Now it's over again," he called at Dyckman Street. "Which do you like best–under or over?"
But Nicholas made no reply. He just looked out of the window, first on one side, then on the other, while sunset lights flamed up over the Fairy Mountains and a lovely purple haze stole softly down upon Manhattan.
"We've passed the last station on Manhattan Island, Nicholas," said the Captain. "Look straight ahead and see what's going to happen before we cross to the mainland."
"The bridge is moving! The bridge is turning round!" called Nicholas. "Here comes a ship, Jimmy. This must be the Harlem River Ship Canal, Joe Star told me about. He said I might see a ship come through the draw some day."
"The bridge is coming back again! The bridge is coming back again,” shouted Jimmy, and in less than a flash the train had crossed the drawbridge and was rushing on above Broadway.
"There's Spuyten Duyvil!" exclaimed Nicholas. "I want to prowl round there some day, Captain LeClair. John Moon told me a funny story about Spuyten Duyvil. Ever been there, Jimmy?"
Jimmy shook his head. He was wondering how General Washington got across the Harlem River when he rode down from King's Bridge on horseback.
"I've often wondered about the same thing," said Ann Caraway when he asked her.
"It's the strangest ride I ever took, Captain LeClair," said Nicholas, when they came to the end of the Subway at Two Hundred and Forty-second Street.
"It was just like a dream the way we went down underground and kept shooting in and out of a tunnel, and now we're getting off at an L station. I'd like to meet the Engineer who turned this Subway into an Elevated whenever he felt like it. Do you know him, Captain LeClair?"
"Yes, I know the Colonel well, Nicholas," replied the Captain. "He was in France with his Engineers."
VAN CORTLANDT'S
"Which way is Van Cortlandt's?" asked Jimmy.
"I see it," cried Nicholas. "Van Cortlandt's is the old grey house with white shutters that stands out there in the big field. Come along, Jimmy! I'll race you. One, two, three–go."
"Take the low path up through the garden!" Captain LeClair called after them.
The snow was still clinging to the little Christmas trees in the Dutch Garden and it lay so thick and white upon the strange little statue on top of the fountain that neither Nicholas nor Jimmy could quite make out what was hidden there.
"It's some kind of an animal," said Jimmy.
And then Nicholas caught the outline of a broad flat tail. "It's a beaver!" he cried. "I've never seen a statue of a beaver before. Have you, Jimmy?"
Jimmy shook his head. He was scooping up the soft snow from the edge of the fountain, and his blue eyes danced with fun as he began to shape a strange little snowman in a sugar-loaf hat.
"Bring me some sticks for his pipe and cane, Nicholas!" he said, "and we'll leave Mr. Van Cortlandt here for Ann Caraway and the Captain."
Nicholas was just putting the cane into the Dutch snowman's hand, when he heard voices at the bottom of the garden, and taking to his heels, he ran up two flights of red brick steps, and across a broad snowy lawn, to the front door of the old stone house. Three seconds later Jimmy stood on the porch beside him, and together they tried the door. It was locked.
"The Captain must have a key," said Jimmy. "He had one for the City Hall."
But when the Captain came he said that he carried no key to Van Cortlandt's. He had forgotten the doors were locked at sundown.
"Suppose you try that big knocker on the side door, Nicholas," he suggested. "You might be able to raise somebody."
So Nicholas ran round the house to the side door. It was a Dutch door, with a high half and a low half, and it was painted yellow and white. The great brass knocker was so high up that Captain LeClair had to boost Nicholas to reach it.
Three times he lifted the knocker and knocked with a heavy knock. At the third knock, the upper half of the door swung open and there stood a lovely young lady with laughing brown eyes, rosy cheeks, and the jolliest smile you ever saw.
She was dressed in a yellow satin brocade with panniers of bright flowered silk and her dark-brown curls were caught up at the back under a big, shining tortoise-shell comb.
"Oh, Nicholas, Nicholas!" she cried. "You've really come at last. I knew you would," and reaching down over the Dutch door, she took both his hands in hers.
"Hold fast and jump!" she called.
Up sprang Nicholas and stood upon the door.
"Please unlock the door and let us all in," he begged with a beaming smile. "These are my friends, Jimmy Blair, Ann Caraway, and the Captain."
"I'm delighted to see you all,” said the charming hostess of Van Cortlandt's, and the lower half of the door swung open at the firm touch of her hand.
"Come right down to the old kitchen and have a cup of Dutch chocolate with Nicholas."
"Why, Molly Gardiner!" exclaimed the Captain, as their eyes met, "what brings you here?"
"I always celebrate Washington's Birthday somewhere," she said. "Last year I was at Oyster Bay, and today I've motored the length of Long Island on the chance of meeting Nicholas here. I missed him at Christmas, you see," and catching Nicholas by the hand, Molly Gardiner danced gaily through the hall and down the cellar stairs to the old Dutch kitchen.
"It's the jolliest kitchen I've ever seen," he cried, as he danced about the big room with Molly Gardiner.
And when they were out of breath, Molly Gardiner threw a stick of driftwood and a handful of pine cones on the fire, took the singing teakettle from the crane and set it on the hearth, and turning to Ann Caraway she pushed a little foot-stool under her feet, and to Jimmy she handed the bellows to blow.
"And you–what make you here, you strange young man?" she asked the Captain, as he placed her chair at the tea table.
"Still looking for the crock o' gold, I'll be bound," and Molly Gardiner laughed so merrily that all the others laughed with her.
"The last time I saw Captain LeClair, Nicholas, he was digging away for Captain Kidd's treasure on Gardiner's Island."
"Did you find any, Captain LeClair?" asked Nicholas, eagerly. "Joe Star says Gardiner's Island is the place to look."
"I found some of the finest clams on Long Island Sound that day, Nicholas," said the Captain gravely, and his eyes twinkled as he looked over at Molly Gardiner, pouring rich creamy chocolate from an old blue pitcher.
"I'd like to go to Gardiner's Island some day," said Nicholas.
"I'll take you there in my sail-boat," said Molly Gardiner, "and before we go I'll tell you some wonderful stories about Gardiner's Island. My great-great-great-grandmother lived there–her husband was a soldier under General Washington. The cakes you're eating are just like the ones she used to give the friends who came to see her. She baked hers in a Dutch oven, but I didn't dare risk mine in this one," and Molly Gardiner laughed again as she touched the Dutch oven on the hearth with the toe of her black satin slipper. Nicholas nodded.
"They're very good cakes," he said. "Have another, Jimmy?"
But Jimmy, having finished his chocolate, was exploring the treasures of the Dutch kitchen. From one of the rough beams overhead hung an old musket and powder horn, and behind some big copper and brass kettles he had discovered a fascinating churn and a cheese-press. And now from a far corner came the rat-tat-tat of a shoemaker's hammer, and Nicholas, running across the room to see what was happening, found Jimmy with one shoe off, seated at a little shoemaker's bench, hammering away for dear life.
"The shoemakers used to go round to people's houses, Nicholas. Everybody had a little bench like this one. I've never seen one before. It's very handy. My shoe wanted fixing."
Molly Gardiner had slipped out of the kitchen while the boys were at the shoemaker's bench and she now called softly down the cellar stairs: "Nicholas! Jimmy! Come quick!"
Upstairs ran the two boys, but when they reached the top, Molly Gardiner was nowhere to be seen, and the shadows were thick and black around them. They could hear the faint ticking of an old-fashioned clock but they couldn't see which way to turn. And then from above they heard again: "Nicholas! Jimmy! Come quick!"
There was a gleam of light at the head of the second stairway, which disappeared as they rushed up through the darkness.
But when they reached the top stair they could see firelight dancing along the wall and at a half-open door Molly Gardiner was waiting for them.
"This is your very own room, Nicholas," she said, as she lighted them in with a tall yellow candle. "It was built for a Dutch boy, you see. I just ran up to light the fire and the candles for you and Jimmy. I'll go back now to Ann Caraway and the Captain.
"Have a good time! Have a good time, dear Nicholas!" and gathering up her yellow skirts, Molly Gardiner ran lightly down the steep back stairs.
Nicholas and Jimmy had a wonderful time playing in the Dutch Room.
"I've never seen a bed like that one, Nicholas,” said Jimmy. "It looks like a cabinet with one side off."
"It's an old-fashioned Dutch bed," replied Nicholas. "You run up a flight of steps and jump in! I'll show you," and Nicholas ran up the stepladder which stood beside the strange bed and jumped in head first. He was out again in no time, for he had spied a fine old ship in a far corner. Leaping aboard, he shouted, "It's the Goede Vrouw! The old Goede Vrouw, Jimmy!
I'm sailing away from Amsterdam.
From Amsterdam, from Amsterdam,
I'm sailing away from Amsterdam,
On St. Nicholas Morning early!"
And while Nicholas sailed away on the Goede Vrouw, Jimmy discovered Jacob Hop's funny old sled and was off for a slide.
* * * * * *
It was very quiet in the Dutch Room when Molly Gardiner stole up the back stairs again with Ann Caraway and the Captain. Both boys were lying in front of the blue-tiled fireplace, fast asleep.
"It seems a pity to wake them up," said Molly Gardiner, "but I've promised to be in Washington Square tonight and it's nearly time to start. Won't you all come with me? I'm going to see some very dear friends who live in one of the old houses on the North Side. They have the most enchanting attic you've ever seen."
"I'd love to go and so would Nicholas," said Ann Caraway. "He's been wanting to see the inside of one of those old houses ever since Christmas Eve. But–" she sighed, "I'm not dressed for a party."
"No more am I," said Captain LeClair.
"It's the kind of a party where you dress after you get there and do whatever you please. Now will you come with me?" pleaded Molly Gardiner.
"Yes, I'll come with you," cried Nicholas, jumping up with a start. "I dreamed I was over in Holland, but I'm glad I'm not. Wake up, Jimmy! Wake up! We're off for Washington Square with Molly Gardiner."
"Did you find the old treasure chest, Nicholas?" whispered Molly Gardiner.
"Yes, we found it," chuckled Nicholas. "It's a Pirate's chest and it's locked. Jimmy says Captain Kidd must have the key."
"We'll look for it when we go to Gardiner's Island," said Molly Gardiner with a merry laugh. "You must say good night to the Dutch Room, now, for the Blue Motor waits below."
"We'd like to see the room where the General slept before we go," said the Captain.
"Then, come this way," cried Molly Gardiner. "We'll each take one of your candles, Nicholas, to light the General's room. Blow out the others, please!" and taking a tall yellow candle from the chimney piece, she stepped out into the dark hall.
"The General slept in the West Room," the Captain told Ann Caraway as they picked up their candles to follow Molly Gardiner.
Nicholas and Jimmy blew out all the yellow candles, one by one, until only two were left, and then they closed the door of the Dutch Room and ran out into the front hall.
The West Room was large and square and airy and peaceful. On the table beside the old four-poster lay a big flint-lock pistol with silver mountings.
"Did General Washington leave his pistol?" demanded Jimmy.
"No," the Captain replied. "The General didn't carry this pistol, but he had one just like it, and he loaded and fired his in the same way."
"No wonder the General liked to sleep here," mused the Captain. "He might be riding down from West Point tonight–under the same old moon"... The Captain raised one of the wide front windows and Nicholas and Jimmy ran over to look out....
"Don't you love the old ball dresses hanging up in the closets?" Molly Gardiner was saying to Ann Caraway. "Here's a pink one made like mine," and then she added: "There's a fascinating play-room with a doll's house, and a toy soldier on horseback, in the attic above the General's room, but you must come back and see it all by daylight."
"I like moonlight and candlelight better," Ann Caraway replied, as they descended the broad front stairs. "I'm in love with the old house. I had no idea it was so alive. It seems as if the Van Cortlandts had just stepped out across the fields to watch for the General–that they might come back any minute to light the fires and the candles and lay the table for his supper. Everything is ready."
"That's the way it always seems here," said Molly Gardiner, "even by day, and that's why I love this house best of all the old houses I visit."... The door of the West Room closed softly and down the broad stairs came the Captain with Nicholas and Jimmy.
"Are you ready to go now?" asked Molly Gardiner with a quick look at the old clock.
"Quite ready," the Captain replied. "I'll bring the car round."
THE BLUE MOTOR
The Blue Motor rolled out of Van Cortlandt Park in the moonlight and turned down Broadway.
Nicholas and Jimmy sat up in front with the Captain who knew and loved every twist and turn of the long winding road to the heart of Manhattan....
Higher and higher, first above the Harlem–then above the Hudson River, climbed the Blue Motor. And when it reached the top, it cut across the Island and ran out upon a wooded road where great rocks loomed strange and lonely at night.
Far, far below, spread out like a panorama, Nicholas could see hundreds of moving lights on elevated trains and bridges.
"Is that Hell Gate Bridge? Where are we, Captain LeClair?" he asked.
"On Harlem Heights," replied the Captain. "Look sharp, Jimmy!"
With a loud honk, honk, the Blue Motor swung round a curve, and high above the dark rocks, there stood an old white house with bare, wind-warped trees about it.
"It's the house where Washington lived!" cried Jimmy.
"Oh, Captain LeClair, how lovely it is in the moonlight!" said Molly Gardiner. "I've never seen it from this side before."
"I always come this way," the Captain replied, "and I seldom go inside. I like just to walk around up here and look off."
The Blue Motor climbed slowly up the steep hill in front of a fine old Georgian house, and turning the corner of Jumel Terrace, stopped at the gates of the driveway.
"Did General Washington stay here very long?" asked Nicholas.
"Just over a month," replied the Captain, "but a great deal happened in that month, Nicholas. The General won his first victory in an open field encounter at Harlem Heights. He wouldn't be likely to forget that as long as he lived. Then, one night, just before midnight, a red light appeared in the sky, and all night long they watched New York burning from up here.
"The General had ridden out across King's Bridge with General Putnam to inspect the camps that day. Across the Hudson was a bridge of boats–and just at sunset, Captain Nathan Hale was brought to the Beekman House.
"No wonder the General came up here often to look off, and no wonder he kept on coming after he was President. It was Washington's high tower, Jimmy. From it he could look across Jersey flats and the high hills of Staten Island, along the Hudson Valley, and up and down Long Island. Whenever the General wanted to know what was going on anywhere he would just climb up to the top of the house with his spy-glasses and look off."
"Drive down past The Grange, Captain LeClair!" said Ann Caraway, as the Blue Motor turned into the St. Nicholas Road. And while the Blue Motor sped on over Harlem Heights, the Captain told Nicholas and Jimmy how the General had first met 'The Little Lion' up there.
"'The Little Lion' wasn't making a speech that day," said the Captain, "he was posting his guns–and the General stopped to watch him.
"It didn't take the General long to make up his mind that he needed that lightning-quick young captain of artillery, first, as an aide-de-camp, then, as a friend. The General had a genius for friendship, Nicholas."
"Lafayette was his friend too," said Jimmy. "Did Lafayette know 'The Little Lion,' Captain LeClair?"
"Yes, Jimmy, Lafayette knew him well for they lived together in 'my family,' as the General called his staff, and he treated them like sons...."
"The stars are shining bright above The Grange tonight," said Molly Gardiner, when the Blue Motor stopped at the corner of One Hundred and Forty-fifth Street.
"Look, Nicholas," cried Jimmy, "there goes a shooting star! Do you think it fell into the Hudson River, Captain LeClair?"
"I wonder," said the Captain.
"Tell us about The Grange, Ann Caraway," said Nicholas.
"The Grange was 'The Little Lion's' dream for his children, Nicholas–the dream of a home of his own in a place that he loved. He knew all the secrets of the woodcocks and partridges in Harlem Woods before ever he met the General, and he used to fish for striped bass in the Hudson River.
"And so, one day, long after the War was over, after the Federal Ship was launched, after his greatest dreams for his country had come true, Alexander Hamilton bought a farm up here, and gave it the name of the home of his ancestors in Scotland."
"My father was tellin' me about Hamilton's Grange," said Jimmy. "I wish it was here yet. You could look clear to the river, Nicholas."
"Did the house stand on this corner?" asked Molly Gardiner.
"No," said the Captain. "It was three blocks down the road. St. Nicholas had not yet named this road, and Hamilton used to ride home on horseback by the King's Bridge Road and take a sloop at his own landing to sail up the Hudson to Albany."
"It must have been lots of fun at The Grange," said Nicholas.
"It was," Ann Caraway replied. "'The Little Lion' knew how to play with his eight children and he gave them all the fun he had missed in his own boyhood.
"He didn't build an imposing house. It was a low white one with balconies, and a roof where they sat on summer evenings and watched the boats on the river. General Hamilton planted the gardens and shade trees himself, and just before Christmas, he wrote to General Pinckney in South Carolina and asked him to send him some melon seeds and two or three paroquets. 'My daughter (Angelica),' he said, 'is very fond of birds.'"
"Did General Pinckney send the birds, Ann Caraway?" asked Nicholas eagerly.
"Not right away," replied Ann Caraway. "He answered the letter in March, and said he hadn't been able to find any paroquets yet, and so he was sending water melon and musk melon seeds, and seeds of scarlet sage and coral shrub, by the Charleston Packet.
"He promised to send the paroquets later if he could find any."
"Did they have pigeons at The Grange?" asked Nicholas.
"Lots of them," said Captain LeClair. "'The Little Lion' enlarged the quarters for the pigeons and wrote a special letter to make sure his plan was carried out."
"He thought of everything to make his home beautiful and homelike, outside and inside," said Ann Caraway.
"And there was magic in his touch," said Molly Gardiner, "for it's left beauty here...."
The Blue Motor crossed the Island below The Grange and ran swiftly down Riverside Drive.
In the Hudson River stood a long line of lighted ships.
"The Fleet is in! The Fleet is in!" cried Jimmy. "These are Washington's ships, Nicholas. They've come for his Birthday."
"Is the Arizona there?" asked Nicholas.
IN WASHINGTON SQUARE
Down Fifth Avenue on flashes of orange light rolled the Blue Motor–through Washington Arch, and round the Square, it swept before it stopped at Number — North.
"This is the very house I wished I could look inside on Christmas Eve, Molly Gardiner," said Nicholas as they ran up the steps together.
"Wishes often come true in Washington Square, Nicholas," Molly Gardiner replied, and rang the bell five times.
A tall, fine-looking young man in the uniform of an Italian officer opened the door.
"I'd know your ring across the world, Molly Gardiner," he said–"short and long, short and long, and very long. It's a true ring."
Molly Gardiner laughed merrily. "Oh, Renato," she cried. "What fun to find you here! I thought you were still in South America. When did you come home?"
"I've been in the house just long enough to get into my old uniform," replied Lieutenant Vero. "Mother wanted me to surprise her guests tonight. She says the French officers may have had the luck to be the first to celebrate Washington's Birthday, but the Italians are going to be the last to keep it. The others are all in the attic dressing. Shall I show your friends up?"
"Please do, Renato, while I run to find your mother. So this is why she told me to wear the yellow satin brocade tonight," said Molly Gardiner to herself, as she vanished through a doorway to the left of the wide entrance hall.
It was a beautiful old house, and long before Nicholas and Jimmy reached the top of the winding stairway leading to the attic they were longing to slide down the polished banisters.
Renato Vero must have guessed what they were thinking, for he whispered, "Watch your chance later on! I'll give the high sign when the coast is clear."
"It's going to be lots of fun," said Nicholas to Jimmy. "This is the jolliest attic I've ever seen, Captain LeClair."
But Captain LeClair had caught sight of a blue and buff uniform hanging from one of the beams and was off like a shot to claim it, while Ann Caraway was diving deep into the mysteries of an enormous trunk marked:
MISS FLORA MCFLIMSEY, MADISON SQUARE
From PARIS.
"I always believed I'd find one of her trunks in New York," she cried, holding up an apple-green silk with a very wide ruffled skirt and a tight little bodice with lace collar and under-sleeves. "Throw me down a hoop and a bonnet, Lieutenant Vero, and I'll be ready to trundle down Broadway in no time," and gathering up her silks and crinoline, Ann Caraway disappeared behind the chintz curtains of one of the little dressing-rooms.
Poking about under the eaves of that enchanting attic, Jimmy discovered a small hairy trunk, which he dragged out under one of the jack-o'-lantern lights. Raising the lid, he drew from its wrappings the neatly folded kiltie of a little Scotch Highlander.
"It's the verra size for me," he exclaimed delightedly. "I'll go and put it on right away."
Left alone in the big open attic, Nicholas wandered about, trying to find a suit as small as his own. But they were all much too big. "I shall have to go just as I am," he said at last, and sat down to wait for Jimmy.
And while he was sitting there feeling a little lonely and out of things, Barucca came bounding up the attic stairs, and planting a paw on each of Nicholas's shoulders, he took a good look at the rosy, friendly face of the little Dutch boy and began playing with his woolen muffler.
"Why, you lovely black cat," whispered Nicholas, "you look just like a dog. Do you hear me–just like a dog. I'd lots rather play with you than dress up tonight. Let's have a game of hide-and-seek!"
Barucca's big yellow eyes sent out snapping green lights as he padded off over the attic floor and disappeared behind Flora McFlimsey's trunk.
And a lively game of hide-and-seek it was, for Barucca knew all the secret hiding places of that old attic, and Nicholas chased him from one to another without stopping. Chuckling and panting for breath, Nicholas finally pulled Renato's old football out of a box of toys and threw it across the attic floor.
Barucca caught the ball, and while he stood with one paw upon it, along came Nicholas and gave it a strong push–over the floor and down the long stairway bounced the ball, with Barucca tearing after it.
"I'm down first," cried Nicholas, waving a hand to Barucca from the banister rail....
"Could we go in there?" he asked, nodding toward the dining-room door. It was open a crack and Nicholas caught tantalizing glimpses of a festive table set for a supper party.
Barucca twisted his whiskers and then very cautiously pushed open the door. The room was dimly lighted by tall white candles and a fire of glowing red coals. Barucca went straight to the old sideboard, and one after another, he opened the doors of its many cupboards. Then, with eyes flashing their greenest lights, he jumped up on top to sniff the delicious smell of tempting glasses of zabaione set out upon crystal trays. From the sideboard he made a flying leap to the table for a good look at the big birthday cake with its wreath of red rosebuds and tender green leaves.
... A door opened, and in came Barucca's beautiful mistress with a silver dish of big shiny-brown chestnuts in her hand.
"What are you doing on the supper table, Barucca?" she asked sternly. "Surely, you will not eat again the little green leaves and the rosebuds Renato has brought for the Birthday," she pleaded, in tones so soft and sad that Barucca jumped down from the table and hid himself behind Nicholas.
"You promised never to eat my flowers more," his mistress continued. "You must keep your promises, Barucca mio."
"Please don't punish him," said Nicholas, smiling up at Barucca's mistress. "Barucca's been very kind to me. I was lonesome and he came to play with me. I asked him to bring me in here. He was just looking round and smelling a little. He wasn't eating anything. I like Barucca very much."
Barucca's mistress set the dish of castagna on the table and giving one hand to Nicholas, and the other to Barucca she drew them gently down to a low seat beside the fire.
"Molly Gardiner told me you were here, Nicholas," she said. "I am so happy that you wanted to come, and that you are already good friends with Barucca. Barucca always knows his own–his ball, his bone, and the one he loves best. You will see how clever he is. He understands everything I say to him. Fetch the magic brush, Barucca!"
Off ran Barucca, but he was soon back again with the soft brush, and his eyes glowed like two yellow lamps, as his mistress brushed and brushed and brushed his silky black fur.
"How old is Barucca?" asked Nicholas.
"Fifteen years in November," his mistress replied. "Barucca is the grandson of a distinguished Italian cat. He came to Washington Square in a basket when he was three months old. Renato was twelve years old and he taught Barucca to play many games. Renato taught him how to play base-ball, using his paw for a bat, and Barucca never missed a ball. Even yet, is Barucca full of mischief."
"I know he is," said Nicholas. "He's been playing ball with me in the attic. Come along, Barucca, let's go and play some more!"
"Take Nicholas to the library, Barucca, and introduce him to your master–only if you are very good, remember, will I give you some of the partridge now roasting in the kitchen."
Back to his mistress ran Barucca and stood up on his hind legs.
"Just the way Hunky does when he's asking Ben Star for something," said Nicholas to himself.
"Come along, Barucca, it isn't supper time yet!"
Barucca's master was sitting upstairs in his cosy library reading–reading so intently, that he didn't even hear the clattering of Nicholas's wooden shoes as he crossed the polished floor.
Not until Barucca leaped upon his shoulder, and whispered something in his ear, did he look up. Then he put down his book and called to Nicholas, with a merry twinkle in his kind eyes.
"Welcome to Washington Square, Nicholas Knickerbocker! Barucca's told me all about you. He asks me to stop reading this stupid book and show you his book."
The big room was lined with books from floor to ceiling–there were books with pictures and books without any pictures at all–large books and small books–thick, fat books–long, thin books–books in beautiful red, blue, and green leather covers, and books in covers of gay flowered paper. It was easy to see that, to Barucca's master, his books were his friends. And while Nicholas was looking about, Barucca was sniffing impatiently at a wide, flat book on one of the lower shelves.
His master reached down and picked up the book. Then, placing chairs for Nicholas and Barucca and himself at a table, he sat down between them with Barucca's favorite book–it was full of wonderful pictures of cats–cats from all over the world.
And while Barucca sat there–his hind legs in the chair, his forepaws resting on the table–watching his master turn the pages of the cat book, Renato appeared with Captain LeClair.
"There's a picture for you!" he exclaimed.
"Barucca always sat like that while my sister and I studied our lessons on winter evenings. He wanted to do whatever we were doing.
"Do you remember, father, how Barucca would stand up on my shoulder and keep on looking at everything while I walked all over the house with him? He's more like a human being than a cat. Isn't he?"
Renato's father smiled, he was very wise, and he seemed to know more about cats than anyone Nicholas had ever met before.
"Now I will show you Renato's favorite book, Nicholas," he said, taking down a very big book with a jolly picture on the cover.
Nicholas immediately recognized his old friend Pinocchio.
"I've read it in Dutch and in English," he cried. "I love Pinocchio, but I've never seen all these nice pictures before. An Italian artist drew them, Captain LeClair."
The Captain and Renato had already seated themselves at the table, and Renato was telling the story by the pictures, just as he used to tell it when he was a little boy, when a lovely, dark-eyed girl in a scarlet dress stole into the room and perched on the arm of Nicholas's chair.
"I am Fiora, Renato's little sister," she whispered softly. "I make pictures myself sometimes, Nicholas. Barucca will bring you up to my studio after supper. It's on the roof."
"There's a telescope up there; we'll all go up and take a look at the moon," said Renato, closing his book.
"Barucca loves to look at the moon through a telescope, don't you, Barucca?"
Barucca looked gravely at Renato, withdrew his paws from the table, arched his beautiful shining back, and walking slowly across the room, jumped up on the window sill for a mighty stretch.
"Come quickly, Renato!" called a gay voice from the doorway. "Our mother is waiting below to welcome her guests, and Molly Gardiner says you're to lead the march down the attic stairs. Everybody's dressed. They're dancing up there.
"I'll sing 'Italia, Italia,'" cried Gemma Romano, and her eyes shone like stars as she kissed her hand to Nicholas.
Gemma Romano was Fiora's cousin. She was older than Fiora and she wore a soft, clinging, white dress with a gorgeous sash, and her silky, black hair was bound close about her head with golden bands. She fingered the strings of her mandoline, and began to play.
"Wait, Gemma," said Fiora gently, raising the window where Barucca still stood looking out. "Wait until our guests are all here. Barucca knows that some of them will come this way."
"Barucca, Barucca, do you see anybody coming yet?" called Nicholas, and ran over to the window to look out.
It was nearly as bright as day in Washington Square, for the moon was sailing high above the Arch where the tall figures of the General and President stand.
"Here they come, here they come!" shouted Nicholas. "They're singing the Broadway song."
Through the wide-open window floated first the music, then the words of an old song:
"The sweetest thing in life,
And no one dare say nay,
On a Saturday afternoon
Is walking down Broadway."
* * * * * *
Nearer and nearer came the singers, dancing to the music of their song, and Nicholas saw that the ladies were wearing wide-spreading skirts and quaint old bonnets with bunches of roses inside, and the men were in high white collars, gay coats, and funny top hats.
* * * * * *
"Walking down Broadway,
The festive, gay Broadway,
The O.K. thing on Saturday
Is walking down Broadway."
Over and over they sang the words as they crossed the Square and danced up through the Arch.
"It's Mrs. Tiffany in her tall riding-hat," said Fiora, "Gertrude with her little bird–Millinette and 'Not for Joe'–all the Players from Fashion are coming. We've asked them over from the Provincetown Theatre for supper tonight."
"Bring everybody down from the attic, Renato!" Molly Gardiner called up the stairs.
"The Town is at the Ball tonight The Town is at the Ball–
Where, oh where is Ann Caraway? I want her to open the door."
There was a rustle of apple-green silk skirts on the attic stairs, and Miss Flora McFlimsey curtsied low to Molly Gardiner as she swept through the wide hall to open the door to the Players.
Greeting Mrs. Tiffany with a kiss, she presented her to her hostess, who at once invited Mrs. Tiffany to lead the Ball with Renato.
"But first," she said, "you must all have supper," and she led the way to a dining-room now blazing with birthday candles.
At the big round table with the Birthday Cake in the middle, sat Nicholas with Barucca, and Jimmy in his kiltie.
"Nicholas Knickerbocker is our host tonight," said Renato's father. "Take seats at his table!"
"Oh, no, I'm not, sir," cried Nicholas. "I'm just company. This is Barucca's party for George Washington. He wants you all to sit down."
CHAPTER XVII
THE CIRCUS COMES
EVERY year before it goes anywhere else the big Circus comes to New York.
Just about the time the wild animals begin to wake up from their long winter sleep, the Circus animals leave their winter home at Bridgeport, Connecticut. Late at night they arrive by the Circus special at the Mott Haven yards of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad.
The Lions and Tigers and all the animals in cages ride; but the Elephants and Camels, and all the animals who like to walk, march through Harlem in a long procession down Second Avenue to Twenty-eighth Street, and enter Madison Square Garden by their own private entrance.
As soon as the animals are rested and everything else is ready, the Circus begins, and every afternoon and evening for five weeks, thousands of children go to see it, and so do their fathers and mothers, their uncles and aunts, their sisters and brothers, and cousins and friends.
No one ever dreams of trying to tell anyone else what the Circus is like. You can't tell what the Circus is like. You just go and see it, then you say to everybody you meet: "Have you been to the Circus yet?"
There was once a poet who lived in New York and wrote news for a great newspaper. Every year when the Circus came Joyce Kilmer wrote a "circus story" for his paper but he never tried to describe a circus performance, oh, no. The Circus was poetry to him, so he only told how it made him feel to go to the Circus again.
Every year his story was a fresh story, for something new came into his mind whenever the Circus came back to Madison Square. He never tired of reminding the men and women of New York when the Circus came–and at Christmas time–that while it was a wonderful and a joyous thing to hang chimes of bells, and set red beacon lights in Life Insurance buildings, the wonder and laughter and faith of their children were of more enduring stuff than these. The Circus is the Circus to children wherever they find it. Joyce Kilmer had seen it in a tent when he was a boy, but he always looked on with the eyes of the small boy he had been, when he sat beside his own boy, or other boys who were seeing it for the first time in Madison Square Garden.
"Let's go to the Circus, Ann Caraway, and invite Julian to go with us!" called Nicholas, when he spied the first Circus poster at the entrance of Madison Square Garden. Nicholas was very fond of walking up across Madison Square to feed the pigeons.
"You aren't too busy to go, are you, Ann Caraway?" he inquired anxiously, since she did not respond immediately.
"I wouldn't be too busy to go to the Circus for anything in the world, Nicholas," said Ann Caraway. "I was just dreaming a little–seeing the first Circus I ever saw in a big tent in Portland, Maine. I shook hands with General and Mrs. Tom Thumb, and I came out with lots of balloons.... I'll telephone Julian's mother right away."
Julian was nine years old, and as he hadn't been to the Circus since he was seven, he naturally wanted to go very much. His mother said he would rather go with Nicholas than with any one except his father, who couldn't go.
The tickets for Saturday were all gone, so Nicholas bought tickets for Tuesday. Sunday morning Julian said to his mother; "Only forty-eight hours now."
Monday morning a wonderful invitation came, and this is what it said:–
MADISON SQUARE GARDEN, March 17, 19–
Dear Miss Caraway:
I am very glad you like the Circus. If you will come very early–before the crowd is let in–I will take you and the boys inside the Circus and introduce you to my true friends–the animals and the performers.
Very truly yours,
DANIEL LYONS.
P.S.–I'm writing in a great hurry. The St. Patrick's Day Parade is forming in Madison Square and I want to get out in time to see it march up Fifth Avenue.
Ann Caraway was far more excited than Nicholas was over this invitation. "It's the nicest letter I ever read, and the inside of a Circus is just what I've wanted all my life to see!" she said. "We'll see all the animals and their trainers and the clowns and the bareback riders and the chariots and everything and everybody I've always wanted to see close up. Think of it, Nicholas!" she exclaimed breathlessly.
"How about Julian's school, Ann Caraway?" asked Nicholas gravely. "Do you think he can be dismissed early enough?"
Ann Caraway looked very sober for a moment, then she said, "I shall have to set all my wits to work on that and you must help me, Nicholas. We will have luncheon in the taxi, of course. That will save time."
"Julian will like eating in a taxi," said Nicholas. "I do. Let's take a yellow one with black and white checkers on it, Ann Caraway. I haven't had a ride in one yet and it looks just right for the Circus."
The Principal of Julian's school listened very attentively to everything Nicholas told Ann Caraway to say to him, and to everything she could think of to say herself, and then he said: "It is almost never done, but Julian may be dismissed early."
Julian was ready and waiting at the door of his school when Nicholas stepped out of the checkered taxi. It was a lovely Spring morning, the trees were budding, the birds singing, and the lambs were all out in the Sheepfold as they rode across Central Park, eating chicken sandwiches. As the taxi turned east by St. Patrick's Cathedral they began to eat Lucky's gingerbread. Down Park Avenue, round the Grand Central Station, over the Viaduct above Forty-second Street rolled the checkered taxi.
"I've never been on this bridge before," said Julian. "I've just walked under it when I've been to see my father off from the Grand Central."
"You're not allowed to walk on the Viaduct, Julian," said Nicholas. "It was built to ride over."
"I know it was," said Julian.
They didn't say another word until they got out of the taxi. They didn't feel like talking on the way to the Circus and neither did Ann Caraway.
Twenty minutes after they left Julian's uptown school without any lunch they were standing inside the Circus at Madison Square Garden with their luncheon eaten.
"We were very quick about it," said Julian. "My father takes longer getting to places."
"We had to be quick," replied Ann Caraway. "Here comes Daniel Lyons now, five minutes ahead of time!"
Daniel Lyons introduced them first to three tall Giraffes named, Mary, Annie, and Louise. All three seemed very fond of Daniel Lyons, and they put out their long tongues and whispered down to him when he reached up to pat their cheeks and noses.
"Giraffes are very affectionate when they like you," said Daniel Lyons, "especially Annie and Louise."
Then they walked across the room to see the tiny horse Knee High, and they shook hands with the Princess Wee Wee, and with Franz the African Bushman, who talked to them in the Zulu language, and told them in English that he lived in Albany in winter.
All the strange characters who march round the Circus ring were in this big room. Daniel Lyons knew them all very well and introduced many of them to Nicholas and Julian, who smiled and shook hands but said nothing. On their way down by the runway to see the performing animals, Nicholas said, "They have good times every day don't they, Daniel Lyons, and make lots of friends here?"
"They surely do, Nicholas," said Daniel Lyons. "Everyone in the Circus finds somebody stranger than he is to keep him company. They live like one big family."
At the foot of the stairs Daniel Lyons guessed that Julian and Nicholas must be thirsty, so they each drank a bottle of lemon soda and bought a bag of peanuts, and then they went to see the jet-black and cream-colored Circus Horses standing in their stalls waiting for the performance to begin, and the Zebras, the Donkeys, the Mules, the Camels, and long lines of Elephants with swaying trunks, who ate up every one of Julian's peanuts and asked for more. They saw all the animals in cages, the Lions, the Tigers, the Leopards, the Sea-Lions and the Seals in their tanks.
When they came back upstairs the procession was forming and that was the best fun of all. Nobody was cross, excited, or scared.
"Would you like a ride in Cinderella's coach before she comes to claim it?" asked Daniel Lyons, opening the door of the little rose-lined gold coach for Julian and Ann Caraway to step in.
Nicholas hopped up on the box and picked up the reins. But the six little white ponies knew their own driver and they refused to budge for Nicholas. So he sat there laughing and shaking the reins while Julian and Ann Caraway pretended the little coach was rolling along....
"Will you please let us have that Elephant tub to stand on?" called Daniel Lyons, opening the door of Cinderella's coach for them to step out.
The next thing they knew Nicholas and Julian, and Ann Caraway, were all standing up beside Daniel Lyons on a tall Elephant tub facing the entrance to the Circus ring. The procession had formed on both sides of them, ready to march in, and it seemed just as if that Elephant tub was going to march in too, when along came Jules Turnour.
"Oh, Julee!" called Daniel Lyons. "Come over and meet my friends!"
"Bon jour, cher Nicolas, I know you very well already, and you too, Julian," said the charming old French clown, reaching up to the Elephant tub to shake hands, first with Nicholas and Julian, and then with Ann Caraway, who said, "And I know you, Jules. You are the clown whose story I've so often read to the boys. You were born in a Circus wagon in Spain and you were an acrobat before you were a clown. You began as a little Red Demon. I've always believed that book was a true story."
"Yes, it's true, every word of it," said Jules Turnour, with a smile, as he turned to show Julian his jumping-jack.
"Tell the boys about your mail route, Jules," said Daniel Lyons.
So Jules told Nicholas and Julian how busy it kept him between performances being Postman for the Circus.
"As soon as we arrive in a new town," he said, "I hurry off to the Post-office with the mail bag to post all the letters and bring back the mail. It is something I like very much to do for letters from their families and friends follow Circus people wherever they go. Most of us live in the country between seasons. Many Circus people own farms. I have a little farm myself out in North Dakota."
"There's Fred Stelling," said Daniel Lyons. "He goes on with Jules. Watch for his Butterfly Act, Julian! Come over and meet my friends, Fred!" he called.
So Fred Stelling, the old London clown, came over to the Elephant tub and shook hands with them all, and after him, came Jimmy Spriggs, the jolly Policeman clown. Then the Circus music began and everyone went back to his own place, for the key that unlocks everything that happens in the Circus ring is in the music, and all the performers who are outside of the ring know just what is happening if they listen for a moment.
The great doors opened and in marched the procession, so close to the Elephant tub, that when all the Elephants came along, Ann Caraway held her breath and said to Daniel Lyons, "I know this tub is going to follow the Elephants in!"
Round the Circus ring and back again swept the long procession.
Julian and Nicholas said nothing. They just stood on the Elephant tub and stared and stared and stared, while the Lions went in with a beautiful black Panther accompanied by a lady in a white suit with a whip in her hand.
The Seals and Sea-Lions were just slipping out of their tanks into the Circus pushcarts when Daniel Lyons said, as he jumped off the Elephant tub, "We will go in ourselves in time to watch the Sea-Lions. They do wonderful things. It's a very high jump," said he. "Better climb down the ladder at the back."
So while the Circus music was calling and calling all the different animals to come into the Circus ring and perform, Nicholas and Julian and Ann Caraway climbed down the ladder, and the next thing they knew they were walking into the Circus by the very same door the procession had passed through.
No sooner were they all seated in the front seats of a box facing the center ring, than the music suddenly changed, and in rushed the clowns from a side entrance next their box.
"JULIAN! JULIAN! JULIAN!" called a voice they all knew. Julian sat dumb with astonishment at the sight of two clowns directly in front of the box. One of them stood for a second, bowing and smiling with his hand on his heart.
"It's Jules, Julian! It's Jules!" cried Nicholas. "He's calling you. Call back to him, Julian! Call back!" and Nicholas stood at salute with one hand raised to his blue helmet, while Ann Caraway waved his French flag.
"The second one is Fred Stelling, he's doing the Butterfly Act! Look at him, Julian!' cried Nicholas.
But Julian was still speechless after hearing his own name called by a clown in the Circus ring. Not until all the white statues came alive, and a milk-white horse with golden wings rose up, bearing a lady in spangles, who had just spread her white parasol for a flock of white doves to rest upon did Julian speak. Then he said, "I saw the statues the other time, and the gold carriage with the dogs jumping through the wheels. I'm glad they are doing it again," and he beckoned to a boy to bring him an ice cream cone.
When the Circus was over they walked out across the big ring, and Daniel Lyons gave the boys whips and jumping-jacks and then he said good-bye to them at the front door of Madison Square Garden.
Ann Caraway bought a number of balloons when they got outside, and they climbed to the top of a Fifth Avenue bus near the Flatiron Building. It was a windy day. It isn't an easy thing to keep balloons from blowing off a Fifth Avenue bus in a high wind, but Nicholas and Julian didn't lose a single one.
When they got down from the bus, Julian hung his jumping-jack on one of the big buttons of his overcoat, and took the whip that was like the Ringmaster's in one hand, and several balloons in the other. It was quite easy to see that they had been to the Circus.
"How's the Circus this year?" asked the Traffic Policeman, stopping them in the middle of Fifth Avenue, and he wanted to know if they were selling balloons.
"They are Circus presents for people we know," explained Nicholas, and then he said, "Couldn't we take Julian home in a hansom, Ann Caraway? I haven't had a ride in one yet and I've wanted to ever since I saw the one on my map."
Ann Caraway waved a balloon to a nice old driver in a green silk beaver hat, who was sitting up behind on a two-wheeled cab, and he turned his horse around and crossed over Fifth Avenue to pick them up.
There wasn't room inside the hansom for all the balloons, so they held the strings very tight and let some of them float outside.
Then Ann Caraway pushed open the little trap door in the top of the hansom, and called up to the driver: "Central Park West, please!" The driver nodded, and gathering the reins tighter over the roof of the hansom he drove up Fifth Avenue at a lively trot, while Nicholas, Julian, and Ann Caraway went jiggling along inside. They couldn't see the driver at all.
When they came to Julian's house, Ann Caraway got out and Nicholas invited Mary and Constance, Julian's two sisters, to take a ride in Central Park while Ann Caraway was telling Julian's mother what a good time they had had at the Circus....
"I haven't seen as much life inside a hansom in twenty years," said the old driver when he stopped his horse in front of the Library Lions for Nicholas and Ann Caraway to get out.
"If more people would go home from the Circus in hansoms they wouldn't feel so tired," said Ann Caraway. "It's been the best Circus day I ever knew, Nicholas, and I'm still ready for anything!"
And that wasn't quite the end of the Circus for Nicholas and Ann Caraway, for on Saturday morning, as they were crossing Madison Square they heard Circus music.
"Let's go round to the side entrance, Ann Caraway," said Nicholas, starting to run.
When they reached the side entrance, the animals were coming out for a street parade, and the street was full of red and gold chariots. They followed the procession along as far as the old Park Avenue Hotel, and marched through Thirty-second Street alongside the Camels. At Madison Avenue they caught up with George Denman and his Elephants. They walked all the way up Murray Hill with sixteen Elephants. They had to walk fast to keep up with them.
As very few people knew the Elephants were walking up Murray Hill that morning, the street was not at all crowded. Nicholas and Ann Caraway walked along the curb close to the Elephants all the way. They had met Mr. Denman inside the Circus but he didn't recognize them. He was riding horseback and he wasn't looking at anybody except his Elephants. If a single one of them got out of line Mr. Denman stopped them all and told them to get in step again.
"That was lots of fun, Ann Caraway," said Nicholas when the procession was over. "I'd like a good book about Circus animals and their trainers. Where's the best bookshop to find one?"
CHAPTER XVIII
NICHOLAS SAILS
ON the Saturday before Easter Ann Caraway's Christmas dream came true, and she sailed for France with Nicholas on the steamer La Savoie.
Down the pier of the French Line came a gay procession of friends to see them off.
At the head of the procession marched Julia, a short girl with snapping black eyes and jet-black hair. She carried two flags and an enormous bundle of letters tied up with orange ribbon, and she walked like a drum-major. Next came Frances, a tall girl with grey-blue eyes, and brown hair, who carried a lovely French basket hung all around with little gold bells that went tinkle, tinkle, tinkle, at every waving step she took. Close behind came Marian, another tall girl with large brown eyes and nut-brown hair. She carried pink roses and a travelling bag and looked as if she expected to sail too. Then came Jacqueline with silver pencils and note-books, looking as if she had stepped out of a very gay picture book. She was wearing a bright green scarf to wave. After her came Marcia with a deep red rose, a basket of Easter bunnies, and a little gold book. Then, like a fairy, Margaret came dancing along, a little girl with short fluffy hair, who wore a lovely scarlet dress under her Spring coat, and carried a gay tin box of chocolates for Nicholas.
They were all laughing and chattering as they came, and behind them were dozens of others who swarmed over the decks of the ship and into Nicholas's cabin, and filled it so full of flowers and parcels, and baskets of fruit, and tin boxes of sweets, and wooden boxes of sun-dried figs from California, that Louis, the French steward, whispered to Fanchon, the little stewardess, who looked exactly like a French doll with blonde hair:
"Elle est une grande dame tres celèbre, n'est ce pas?"
And Nicholas chuckled to himself as he listened to them and kept out of their sight until after the ship sailed.
Two other ships sailed from Chelsea Docks that morning, at the same moment, and the friends of all the people sailing crowded the piers and set up a great shout when the last whistles blew and the three great ocean liners pulled out with their pilots, with all their little tugs screeching alongside them.
And from the top deck of all, Nicholas and Ann Caraway looked down into that great sea of faces, and one after another the faces of friends appeared and flashed signals to them as they waved flags, handkerchiefs, hats, scarfs, umbrellas, and empty baskets.
Down North River swung the three ships, past the Statue of Liberty, and Staten Island from whose heights more friends were waving.
And then Ann Caraway rushed downstairs to the Ship's Library to write letters to send off by the Pilot. Nicholas couldn't be bothered with letters. He wrote only one very short one, with a blue pencil, as he stood on deck waiting to see the Pilot off.
Dear Joe Star:
We've sailed!
Belmonte, the great Toreador of Spain, is on board on his way home from Mexico. No bulls with him, just his wife and baby girl with gold rings in her two little ears. She's a dear!
The Pilot's leaving us.
Tell John Moon I'll write from France.
Au revoir, J. S.
Nicholas,
Whistle Boy.
"Come up on deck and see all the Porpoises, Ann Caraway!" called Nicholas on Easter Sunday morning.
Out from her cabin rushed Ann Caraway just in time to see a big school of Porpoises go tumbling by. They were having a glorious frolic, leaping far out of the water one second, diving deep down out of sight the next.
"Let's go for a walk on the top deck," proposed Ann Caraway, when they had seen the last of the Porpoises.
"Wait a minute," said Nicholas. "I'll get my spy-glasses," and away he clattered over the deck to his cabin. He was back in no time with a spy-glass in one hand and a pocket-compass in the other.
"I'm going way out in the bow and look for that old clipper ship Rainbow, Joe Star talks about," he said. "This is just the kind of a day for clipper ships to be sailing–sunny and blue and windy. Come along, Ann Caraway!"
Far out in the bow stood Nicholas looking for clipper ships while La Savoie sailed on and on over the blue ocean, leaving a long trail of white foam in her track.
They had luncheon on deck and when Louis brought out a basket of fruit with a great bunch of dark purple grapes on top, Nicholas held them up for the sun to shine through while they ate them very slowly, one by one.
"These grapes grew over in Belgium," said Nicholas. "I remember seeing grapes like them, but I never tasted any before."
"They taste like food for the gods," said Ann Caraway. "Let's open the big parcel with the orange ribbons before the grapes are quite gone."
"Good!" cried Nicholas, as a big map of New York fell out. It was a different map from the one he had brought with him, for it was painted in water colors, and the Bronx was filled with Kate Greenaway children, wheeling baby carriages and children riding away to the country. All over Manhattan, from Morningside Park to the Battery, children were dancing and singing and playing in the streets and parks.
"Just the way I've been seeing them," said Nicholas, "only on this map they look as if they were all giving a jolly party for somebody."
"They are–they're giving a sailing party for you, Nicholas," said Ann Caraway. "Some of them have written letters about it, and they all say: 'Don't let Nicholas stay over there. Bring Nicholas home with you. Tell Nicholas to come back as quick as he can. We send our love to the French children by Nicholas but we want him to come back to New York.'"
"They needn't worry," said Nicholas. "I want to go back just as soon as I find out which picture books the French children like best.
"Here's another map with all big pictures!" he exclaimed, unfolding a wide sheet of shiny brown paper.
"The Library Lions are standing right up on their hind legs dancing across the middle of it, the Storyteller's riding an Elephant in Bermuda, the Troll's down in Hudson Park watching the children read by the light of the Midnight Sun, and Liberty's standing on tiptoe waving Bon Voyage. What do you make of all that, Ann Caraway?"
"I think it's just like a fairy tale without any end," said Ann Caraway, unfolding a charming little water color sketch.
"Look, Nicholas! here are the children in Hamilton Fish Park with baskets of flowers and flags and picture-books, and there's the Penny Ride Man with his merry-go-round, in Rivington Street."
"Here's the funniest one of all," chuckled Nicholas. "It's just boys reading, in all kinds of positions–flat on their stomachs, standing up, sideways, every way you can think of."
"And here's one of balloons going up from Washington Square and Central Park," said Ann Caraway, "and another of Staten Island children that reaches all the way from Mariner's Harbor to Tottenville. If I look at any more of these pictures, Nicholas, I'll be asking the Captain to take me right back to New York. So let's stow them all away in the cabin and pack up the chocolates in the basket with the tinkling bells and save everything we're likely to need for parties in the French villages."
"Good!" shouted Nicholas. "Then we'll have nothing to do all the way across the Atlantic except look out for Porpoises and clipper ships."
"And sunsets," added Ann Caraway. "All those clouds banking up in the West mean a glorious one tonight. There's a little new moon, Nicholas."
"Come along, Ann Caraway! Let's go up on the top deck and watch for it. I've just seen the Toreador go up with his little girl."
| NICHOLAS ˙ | HIS ˙ MAP |
| PART | THREE |
| NICHOLAS ˙ | HIS ˙ MAP |
| PART | FOUR |