The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1903-12-13
OLD HARDSTILE'S
FLANNEL HEART.

And the Christmas 1t Made for the
Kitchen Maid Who Tried to Play
Santa Clause.
Nicholas Hardstile was a man who
did not believe in Santa Claus, and the
one thing that he repented was that
ne had not been able to prevent his
parents from giving him the name of
Nicholas, which always made him an
cry because it reminded him of Saint
Nick.
Not to believe in Santa Claus is one
Of the foolishest of all the foolish
things that a person can do in this
world: and it is cheerful to think that
only very, very few extremely mo-
rose and bad-tempered persons are
foolish enough to do it. Nicholas
Hardstile was not only one of those
foolish ones, but he was actually proud
of it.
He never read the story of old
Scrooge around Christmas time, or
around any other time; not he. Stuff
and nonsense" was his opinion of it.
So when Christmas time arrived
Nicholas Hardstile went to great pains
to cultivate even a worse temper than
usual, although it was most unneces-
sary, for his natural everyday temper
was bad enough for almost any pur-
pose.
1t had driven away all those who
had ever attempted to be friendly with
him. and even his business acquaint-
ances tried to go around the corner
hastily if they saw him striding down
the street. AS a consequence, he lived
like most folk who don't believe in
Santa Claus-in a little ugly room in a
boarding house, where he paid literally
for the privilege of growing at every
body. 1t was the only liberal thing
of which Nicholas Hardstile had ever
been guilty in all his Christmasless
life.
so it was on the Christmas Eve about
which we are going to tell you. Mich
olas Hardstile banged his dusty office
door on his dusty office, and banged
his way down the dusty stairs, growl-
ing to himself because the janitor said
Merry Christmas" to him. And the
janitor really and truly had done it
only out of the goodness of his heart.
for even in his widest dreams, of
which he had only few. he never
dreamed Of anything so wildly absurd
as getting anything from Nicholas
Hardstile-eXcept a complaint.
Mr. Hardstile grumbled little more
that is, it was little for him, although
it would have been a whole lot for most
other men--because a red-cheeked girl,
with an armful of bundles, ran into
him as he reached the street. And
when a fat man with a little sled I'M
der his arm bumped into his ribs and
chuckled merrily, Excuse me, sir.
Christmas crowds the streets, you
know" Nicholas Hardstile was so mad
that if he had been a dog nothing
would have pleased him more exquis-
itely than to bite a large piece right
out of the fat mans left leg.
So angry was he that he stepped
spang! into a puddle where the snow
had melted. And in jumping out of it
he stepped spang! into the gutter
where the snow had melted, too.
The language which Nicholas Hard
stile used when he felt the icy water
ripping softly over the tops of his
shoes and down into his socks and in
among his old un-Christmassy toes,
would have made old Santa's merry
red nose turn white with fright if
Santa hadn't been too busy attending
to nice children to pay any attention
whatever to old Hardstile.
With the water squawking in his
shoes, Nicholas pounded his morose
way toward the place that he called
"home," because he didn't know or
care what a real home was like. His
rage made him more clumsy than
usual, and he was showed and pushed
and poked and prodded and squeezed
and pinched and banged by the
Christmas crowds until he was as
mad-as mad as a wet hen, and
he was wet as one, too, around the
feet.
Nicholas Hardstile hurried into his
room when he reached the boarding
clothes, for he feared to catch cold.
It is a strange thing, but overpow-
eringly true, that the more grabbed
and unpleasant and sour a person
is the more he wants to take care
of himself so as to live long. This is
a great waste of time. to be sure, but
it seems to be the weakness of all such
folk.
Nicholas Hardstile soon had his wet
trousers hung up over the back of a
chair then he looked around for
place to hang his wet socks. But he
could find none, and at last he hur-
riedly tied a piece of string under the
mantelpiece and hung his socks on
that, where the heat from the CRATE
could reach them.
Then he tumbled into bed without
saying his prayers. He hadn't prayed
since he was years old. In few
minutes Nicholas Hardstile was fast
asleep and dreaming like anything
1t was a beautiful dream, so beauti-
full that it actually made him SMILE II
was all about a Door family that
owed him money, and about how he
was going to dispossess them the very
day after Christmas The reason Il
was to be the day after Christmas was
only because he couldn't get them dis
possessed on Christmas Day itself.
It was IN such dreams as this that
Nicholas Hardstile was happier than
he ever was when he was awake. And