Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1885-12-19
Written for The EVENING STAR
MRS. TRENCH AND CHRISTMAS
By HARRIET PRESCOTT sPoFFORD.
copyrighted 1850


mas presents. and then it's New Years, and
then it's Easter, and it's birthdays all the time,
What way it is to keep festival! Stirring
up all the covetousness We have, appealing to
our lowest nature, as If could not be glad
without receiving tribute! AS for wedding pres
ents, they add a horror TO life-first weddings
are bad enough, but glass, tin, leather, linen sill
ver-perfect vulgarity! If we live TO be mar
ried n hundred years we shall not have any of
that"
81 don't want any of that, Harry" said his
wife, gazing up at him in his TRADE out of q
pair of limpid gray eyes that just now looked
like two tears or two great jewels glittering in
dew. al only want money enough for my
Christmas presents. A hundred dollars will
get the whole of them, and I'm sure that's good
management when you think of this family"
ga hundred dollarsr'
"Why, always spend that
$40 waste on Christmas folderols, and people
starving all around usr'
"Pm sure it's not my fault if people are
starving cried the wife. "They wouldn't
starve If ruled the universe. i should portion
things out equally TO every one alike. There
wouldn't be any Queen Victorias then with a
million dollars year, and shop girls with a
half dollar q day"
There wouldn't be any shop girls, sup
pose" said her husband quietly.
Mrs. Trench looked up again and the color
mounted her cheek. No shop girls-no shop
Ping-the idea was perhaps appalling; her lips
auivered- Il suppose 50, SAID the lovely little
their places.
Her husband laughed in spite of the righteous
Indignation under which he laboring
"iou see," he said, ''ff the world Is upside down
1t can't be righted all at once. You can only do
your best in your own little corner. And one
thing to do in your little corner is to discourage
this prOmiscuOuS Christmas gift enterprise
II is the discomfort OF every head of u house in
ChristendOm who can't spare the money, and
1t half ruins young men, beginning life, who
earn pittances and have TO remember every
body In their boarding houses because it's ex-
gected of them. For my part, I wish the old
Pilgrim Fathers who forbade mnce-pies and
Christmas carols and all the rest had their way
now
II should think you would be ashamed.
Harry TrenchT' cried his wife slowly, but with
gathering strength. "Christmasi The one day
In the year! The sweetest, heavenlest festival,
null of green boughs in winter, and children,
full OF all sorts of happiness and good-feeling!
And you want to abolish Christmas
81 never said wanted to abolish Christmas.
] only say that, il this sort of thing is to be
Kept up, wish it were movable feast and
took place at some other part OF the year and
not when all the half-yearly bills come in and
man is dead broke anyway"
why don't YOU abolish the halfyearly
bills cried his wife, 'if you want to abolish
sYou Begin said Mr. Trench.
81 begin! / must say, Harry Trench, /
wonder If Courcy de Spenser talks so to his
wifei i should think it was / who spent INV
money in cIubs and went to races and hired
yachts, and had a suit for every occasion and
a necktie for every day in the year, and took
champagne with my lunch and went to the
theater without my wife. II who turn my
why shouldn't you turn your dresses if they
can stand 1T? Many things are all the better
for turning-a new leaf, for instance. Pm going
To turn one to-day. And / shant furnish any
one with single dollar TO buy a Christmas gilt,
and that ends the NATTER And Mr. Trench,
rather indignant at this reorganization of his
shortcomings, or lOnggoings rather, threw
down his napkin and shut the door behind him
a Eelelnence p0uli mo
called slam, but yet was certainly more than
ajar: -
Josephine. the maid. not being present. But
III always hurt her 10 cry, and indeed she was
SO angry that her tears were more like sparks
OF lire. No money for her Christmas! Want
ing to abolish her Christmas! Wanting to
change Christmas from its season of SHOWS and
Irosts and everSreens into paltry. warm, life
less summer weather.. Each allegation was "a
pulse of flame, and of course her tears were
dried almost before they fell. There always
had been streak of meanness in Harry her
reflections ran on, for all he spent money so
freely and tossed il away to the frs asker; he
never had any To toss away to her; she never
had an allowance like other wives; Mrs. Courcy
In everything her heart longed for, in or
der to give her Christmas presents, every
care, she cried aloud. Il shall make
my Christmas presents all the same.
shall make none to himr' And. very 9 much
PeaSsd with he5 rst and
took her diamond ear rings from
their hiding place aud put them in the sun to
cried. "Mrs- Courcy de Spenser doesn't have to
sell her earrings, just to be decentr' How
splendid they were! Not very large but of clear
water, like two great sparkling concrete sun
beams themselves. How she mad Ionged for
them before she had them; how she had thanked
her father when he gave them TO her, and pitied
him for the sacrifice, in his slender circum-
stances. that he made TO do it, and hated her
sell afterwards for letting him do it, and coaXed
her mother TO dismiss the second girl and
allow her to do the parlor work herself for
whole year till she had nearly made il up
before her father noticed what was going on,
Now father and mother were gone and the
little hateful stones were only sy mbols OF her
own seifshness, she didn't want To see them
any more All the same, the idea that she
was forced to part with them whether or
not, bitter. But she could have a
hundred dollars tor them easily. She knew
Mr. Sparkier very WELL and so did
Harry. and he would be glad To CRAFTY her and
make good bargain TOR himself. And sine put
on her hat and buttoned her jacket with EN-
phasis on her way down To the jewelers.. She
hurried, for II she did not do 1t at once she
might not have the impetus TO do it at ALL
Harry liked 10 see her dressed and wearing the
earrings. Very well; il lie wanted see her
wearing diamond earrings, he might give her
some They were hers before she married him
and she had earned them herself, as she might
say She mad good rs bought them and She
had as good a right TO sell them. And IL WAS
not an hour, having been detained on her way
oy succession OF delightful shop windows, be-
fore she Came out OF Sparkler Il Co. s. Swapping
her pOrtemonnaie together with jlsl ) 90 and
her car ticket in IL, thinking how nice il was
that now she could do all her Christina shon-
ping before the rush.
IL was very uncomfortable that lust AT this
instant, she should run against Harry with n
violence that set her hat all awry. But he said
"Halloo !. and she said, Good gracious there
goes my hat. And with the impatient con-
Germ TN anything at FAULT in her hat ALWAYS
gave her, she stopped, in nioinentary lorgetIiIl-
ness OF al else, to- set the hat right by the ai of
the wonderful Venetian mirror in the adjacent
window; and she gave glance after Harry
and thought ROW angry she was with him, and
what ~ superb-ioOking fellow he was in spite of
his being so unkind To her, and half wished she
hadn I sold the earrings But if she hadn't
Sold them, all the world who got no presents
from them would only think he was as stingy
rs he was good-lOoking, and il was nearly as
mucn To prevent such thinking as ANYTHING
else that she wished To- make her gifts. And
She turned 10 go her way-and her pocket-book
gone.
The passers on that crowded thorouchfare
might nave Thought there q little mad
woman scurryins around there for the next
nNe minutes; and so many OF them assisted her
In the search that a. Il bee gets wind of sweets
= policeman presently came bearing down upon
them ami scattered them by his appearance II
the gutter. III it had flown out of her hand i'm
along by the crowd. III a purse-snatcher had IT,
he had made off with 1t. She had lost her
money and she had lost her earrings.
Her HIST Impulse WAS To- rusn into the Jewell
ers shop ana demand her earrings back But.
m give "A