Who ate the pink sweetmeat?

But one day as he sat idly before his open door, a little gray burro came ambling agilely through the fallen trees, his rider, a dwarfish man of haughty aspect, whose cheeks were wrinkled, and beard grizzled, but whose eyes were as piercing and elf-locks as black as the half-breed’s own. Seated on his little long-eared palfrey, he accosted the half-breed and gravely inquired, in tolerable English, if he knew that he was trespassing on the lands of the patron, who lived at the plaza, on the plain below.

“No; I don’t know nothing about no patron,” said Cherokee Sam shortly, as he arose and stood towering in giant height above the dwarfish rider of the burro.

Bien, then he was sorry to have to tell him, said the Spanish stranger in suave reply. He was the mayordomo, and this was the patron’s land, and the coyote (half-breed) that killed all the deer must seek some other spot. Far he must go, too, for the patron’s land was far-reaching, and he pointed with his willow wand to the Sierra rising above, and the plain rolling far away below. On all sides far as the eye could see was the patron’s land. His it was by virtue of a Spanish grant.

The coyote giant laughed in scorn. “I’ve heerd of them thar grants. What good are they? Squatters’ rights and squatters’ rifles rules in this here free country, I reckon. Go back, little Mr. Mexican, to your patron, and tell him that here I’ve took up my homestead, and here I’ll stay, and you uns may do your do!”

As he spoke he threw his rifle on his hollowed arm, and looked black thunder from his beetling brow upon the burro-rider. Perhaps had he been less haughty in his defiance, he would have fared better at the mayordomo’s hands. For when the corn was yellow, and he returned from one of his periodical prospects to gather it, he found only the bare stubble field awaiting him.

Thus it was that Cherokee Sam, hunter, prospector and squatter, despite his triad of trades, was now at Christmas without a “corn-pone,” and this state was likely to continue through the winter.

Returning home at sunset with the legs of a doe tied across his breast, and her slender head, with its big ears trailing behind against the muzzle of the eager hound, the hunter strode from the timber on the slope, and struck the snow from his frozen leggins and moccasons as he paused on the Shut-in. A lofty upheaved ledge of red sandstone was this, which arose from the slopes on either hand, and shut in the gulch from the plain below, leaving only a narrow portal for the passage of the stream.

Above him, as he stood, were the foot-hills, and his wild home all snow-covered and cold in the shadow of the Sierra. But below the snow had not fallen, and the plain shone brown and warm in the lingering light of the setting sun. There, softened by the distance, with a saffron shimmer about its dark outlines, lay the gray adobe plaza, sleeping by the silver stream.

There were gathered corn and oil, the fat of the land; and he would have nothing but the deer on his shoulders for Christmas cheer. A bad gleam came in the half-breed’s eyes as he thought of his harried corn-patch, and gazed at the abode of his enemy.

As if in sympathy with his master, the hound put up his bristles, and growled savagely. Looking down, the hunter was astonished to see a small figure standing motionless at the foot of the Shut-in, and gazing up at him.

The stranger was a young boy. He was very richly and somewhat fantastically dressed in a silken jacket, and silken pantalones, much be-buttoned about the outer seams, and confined at the waist by a silken sash. On his feet were buckskin zapatos, soled with raw-hide, and tied with drawstrings of ribbon, and over his long and flowing hair a white sombrero with gay silk tassels.

This he reverentially removed as the hunter descended, and resting on him his soft black eyes, said:

“Good evening, Señor don San Nicolas. To-night is Noche Buena (Christmas eve), and Padre Luis told me you would pass through the Shut-in on your way to the plaza. So I’ve come to meet you.”

His manner was eager and full of trustful confidence. The half-breed was taken aback.

“I don’t go by no such name as that,” he replied gruffly. “I’m Cherokee Sam, and I live down thar;” and he pointed to the dirt-roofed cabin in the gulch.

“I wanted badly to see the saint,” said the stranger, as his face fell; “and I never could when he comes to the plaza, because I’m then always asleep. I’m the patroncito, señor.”

He had replaced his sombrero, and his air as he declared himself was princely.

Cherokee Sam’s face darkened. The young patron– the son of his enemy – the despoiler of the corn-patch. Even now they must be seeking him, and here he was in his hands. And there was no snow below, and they could find no trail to follow.

“What did you do that for?” asked the patroncito, in a tone of authority, as he laid his hand on the ragged bullet-hole behind the doe’s shoulder.

“I had to have meat for my Christmas dinner,” said Sam. “Come with me, and I will show you that thar Spanish Santy Claus you’re huntin’ for,” he added, and held out his hand.

The patroncito placed his own in it promptly. For a moment the giant stayed his stride to the other’s puny steps. Then the patroncito stopped and said commandingly:

“The snow is deep; take me up!”

Never had the wild hunter known a master; but now, without a word, he stooped and, like another giant St. Christopher, set the child upon his shoulder, and plunged through the drifts for the cabin.

In a moment he had the doe gambrelled to a pine in front of the cabin. Then he pushed open the slab door, and entering, blew up the covered embers in the rough fireplace, and piled on the pitch pine. As it blazed up, he drew a couple of deerskins from his bed in the corner and flung them down before the fire and bade the patroncito be seated.

He obeyed; and the half-breed looked at him with stern satisfaction. Many a long day should it be ere the patron saw again his son and heir. But these reflections were disturbed. His guest pointed to his gay zapatos.

“Will you please take them off, Don Cherokee Sam?” he said. “My feet are wet and my fingers are numb.”

The half-breed knelt and undid the ribbons, and drew them off, and also his long silk stockings.

“Muchas gracias, Don,” said the patroncito, as he reclined at ease and toasted his bare toes before the fire.

His fearlessness pleased his hunter host well. His manner, too, was patronizing, and the half-breed entered into the jest with savage humor.

“If you’ll ’scuse me, Mister Patroncito, I’ll git supper.”

He spoke as if this were an operation requiring great culinary skill and much previous preparation. It consisted in cutting three steaks, with his sheath-knife, from the deer’s ham, and placing them with a lump of fat in the frying-pan over the fire. These turned and browned, two tin cups filled with water, and the supper was ready.

The guest took kindly enough to the venison. He tasted the water and paused. “I’ll thank you for a cup of hot coffee, Don Cherokee Sam, with plenty of sugar in it, if you please.”

Don Cherokee Sam was embarrassed at this polite but luxurious request.

“Coffee’s bad,” he said, shaking his head. “It spiles my nerve so’s I can’t draw a stiddy bead. Water’s best, patroncito.”

The guest was truly polite. He emptied his cup with the best of grace. But presently he paused again in his consumption of venison.

“Pardon me, but you have forgotten the bread.”

The host arose. What could he set before this youthful sybarite from the plaza?

“Bread’s been mighty scarce with me this winter,” he muttered. “And I planted a good plenty of corn out thar too.”

The recollection roused his rankling resentment, and he paused.

“Why didn’t you gather it, then, like the peones do?” asked the patroncito placidly.

“It was stole,” muttered the host; but he checked himself, and added in a softer tone, “by b’ars and other varmints, I reckon.”

And with this compromise between anger and truth, Cherokee Sam reached up and took down a small sack hanging to the great centre roof-log. It contained a few nubbins found on the harried field, his seed for next spring.

“Patroncito,” he remarked in a tone of conciliating confidence, as he shelled an ear in the frying-pan, “thar’s nothing like deer meat, and running water, and the free air of heaven, and maybe parched corn oncet in a while, to make a man a man.”

Under this encomium the parched corn was partaken of with gravity. And supper being over, the host cleaned up, a simple process, performed by dashing cold water in the red-hot frying-pan, and hanging it on a nail.

“San Nicolas, you said you’d show him to me,” then politely hinted the patroncito.

“It’s early yet for him,” said Cherokee Sam. “He’s jist about taking the trail in the Sierra, and the drifts is mighty deep, too. But he’ll be here.”

“My stockings, Don – they should be ready; and they’re wet. Will you oblige me by holding them to the fire?” said the princely patroncito.

Cherokee Sam held the damp stockings to the blaze. The patroncito watched him sleepily.

“He’s a long time coming, Don Cherokee Sam,” he murmured, as he nodded – nodded yet again, and slipped down upon the deerskin, fast asleep.

The half-breed lifted him like a feather, and laid him on his bed and drew the covering softly over him. Noiselessly he replenished the fire, and squatted before it, resuming the stocking-drying process.

The resinous boughs burst into flame, and a pungent perfume and a red glow pervaded the smoke-blackened cabin. The light fell on the patroncito as he lay on the couch of skins, caressed the slender foot he had thrust from out the covering, and danced on the silver buttons strung on his gay pantalones. Over him, like an ogre, hovered the wavering shadow of the giant’s head, rendered more grotesque by his towering cap of badger-skin, plumed with a flaunting tail.

As he sat on his heels in the brilliant light, this savage head-covering lent additional fierceness to the half-breed’s hatchet-face. Wild-eyed, too, was he as any denizen of his chosen haunts. But stolid in its composure as his saturnine countenance was, it was free from all trace of the petty passions that cramp the souls of his civilized half-brothers. And as he looked at the soft stockings, now dry in his hands, a smile parted his thin lips.

Just then the firelight flared up and went suddenly out, and the threatening shadow on the wall was lost. And though the door never opened, and even the hunter’s vigilant ears caught no sound, he felt a presence in the cabin. Looking up, he dreamily beheld, shadowed forth dimly in the gloom, the form of San Nicolas, long belated by the drifts. But how that Spanish Christmas saint looked, or what he said to remind the half-breed of that hallowed time when all should be peace on earth and good will towards men, must ever remain a secret between him and his lawless host.

The patroncito awoke, and through the open doorway saw the snow sparkling in the sun of Christmas morning. Over the fire Cherokee Sam was frying venison, and on either side hung the long silk stockings, filled.

“And I never saw him!” said the patroncito reproachfully, as he looked at them. “Oh, why didn’t you wake me, Don Cherokee Sam?”

“I didn’t dar to do it, patroncito,” explained Sam. “’Twasn’t safe when he told me not to.”

He watched the patroncito anxiously as he took the stockings down. But he need have had no fear. As their contents rolled out on the deerskin the patroncito uttered a cry of delight.

A handful of garnets, bits of broken agate, a shivered topaz, shining cubes of iron pyrites, picked up on otherwise fruitless prospects by San Nicolas; a tanned white weasel-skin purse, and ornaments of young bucks’ prongs, patiently carved by that good saint on winter evenings. Certainly, never before, with all his silk and silver, had the petted patroncito received gifts so prized as these.

“Never mind about breakfast,” he said imperiously, as he gathered them up. “Take me to the plaza right away.”

The half-breed humbly complied. But scarcely had they emerged from the granite gateway of the Shut-in when they were met by a party from the plaza, headed by the patron himself, searching, in great trouble, for the wanderer. They had been abroad all night. Happily, Cherokee Sam remembered the admonitions of San Nicolas over night.

“Patron,” he said, haughtily, as he led the patroncito forward, “I bring you a Christmas gift.”

Then, as Cherokee Sam afterwards described it, “there was a jabbering and a waving of hands by them thar Mexicans.” And he, turning, strode back to his cabin, and his unfinished breakfast. Still his resentment rankled. But it vanished later on that day.

Once more the gray burro ambled up the gulch bearing the dwarfish mayordomo, but this time on a mission of peace. After him came a burrada (pack-train) well laden, and drew up before the door of the astonished Cherokee Sam. With uncovered head and courtesy profound, the mayordomo stood before him and asked would Don Cherokee Sam indicate where he would have the Christmas gifts, sent by the patroncito, stored.

“In the cabin,” replied Sam, glancing at the loaded burros in dismay, “if it will hold ’em. I ain’t got nowhars else.”

The mayordomo waved his wand to the attendant packers, and in a moment the cabin was filled with box, bag, and bale, closely piled. Assuredly Don Cherokee Sam had luxuries of life to last until Christmas came again.

CHERRY PIE

Yet it isn’t such a bad house,” said little Elsie Perch to herself, as she looked upward at the tall tenement-house in which she lived; “to be sure, there’s a good many folks in it – Grandpa ’n Grandma Perch, ’n Grandpa ’n Grandma Finney, ’n uncle John’s folks, ’n us – ’n her house hasn’t got anybody in it but them– but it’s a good enough house. I ain’t going to cry because that little girl that goes to Sunday-school with me has nicer clothes ’n lives in a nicer house. She hasn’t got any cherry-tree, anyway!”

Elsie spoke these last words with an air of great triumph, for, sure enough, right in the back yard of Elsie’s home stood a great, generous cherry-tree; and though as she looked at it now, in the gray solemnity of a December twilight, she had to use considerable imagination to recall the luscious red fruit it had borne last summer, and the glossy richness of the green leaves, under whose shade she had been cool and happy when many of her neighbors were sweltering in the August heats; still Elsie was quite equal to it, especially as to-morrow was Christmas day. For there was to be a splendid Christmas dinner at Grandma Perch’s, on the lower floor, and uncle John and his family, and Elsie’s father and mother, and Grandma and Grandpa Finney were all to be at the dinner. The cherry-pie was always the crowning glory of Christmas dinner with the Perch family. To be sure, it was made of canned cherries; but then, couldn’t Grandma Perch can cherries so they tasted just as nice in winter as in summer? And nobody else knew so well just how much sugar to put in, nor how to make such flaky, delicious pie-crust.

All these things occurred pleasantly to Elsie as she ran up and down the walk in her warm hood, and cloak, and mittens. There was a shade of repining, to be sure, as she thought of the velvet clothes, and various other privileges belonging to the “girl who went to Sunday-school;” but this grew less as she ran, and especially as she looked down to the square below and saw how much more squalid and miserable the houses looked down there, she felt a thankful glow that her home was better, and that her papa and uncle John never came home in a cruel, drunken fury like the fathers of the children down there.

“Pretty good times come Christmas!” said Elsie aloud, in a burst of joy, hopping merrily up and down, and forgetting her discontent. “Why, there’s Millie!” and she ran across the street to a little girl who had just come out of the tall house opposite. Millie looked very forlorn.

“What’s the matter?” asked Elsie.

“Mamma says I can’t have any Christmas present,” said Millie, beginning to sob wretchedly; “she was expecting some work, but it didn’t come, and the rent’s overdue, and – and I can’t have a thing!”

“That’s too bad,” said Elsie; “I’m going to have lots – and we are going to have cherry-pie for dinner.”

“Oh, my!” cried Millie, drying her tears to contemplate Elsie’s future; “cherry-pie! It must be so good! It sounds good.”

“Didn’t you ever have any cherry-pie?”

Millie shook her head.

“Oh, it’s splendid!”

Millie’s eyes shone.

Just then some of the blue, pinched, half-dressed little children, who lived below, came running up the walk. There were two boys whom the children knew to be a certain Sammie and Luke, and two girls whose names were Lizy and Sally. They were shouting and racing, but they stopped to listen to the conversation. The word “Christmas” loosened their tongues at once. “I’m going to our Sunday-school to a Christmas-tree,” said Sammie.

“I can’t go to Sunday-school,” said Lizy, ready to cry, “I hain’t got no clo’es.”

Elsie’s heart reproached her anew for her covetous, ungrateful thoughts of a few moments before. Her self-reproaches grew stronger still when Millie remarked to the little crowd of listeners, as though proud of the acquaintance of so distinguished an individual, that Elsie Perch was going to have cherry-pie for her Christmas dinner.

“Oh, my!” “Is she?” “Ain’t that fine!” cried one and all, with enthusiasm.

“Yes,” rejoined Elsie, her heart swelling with pride, “my grandma always has a cherry-pie for Christmas.”

Silence fell on the little group, and in the midst of this silence, a light footfall was heard pattering along the side street, and there burst into view a little girl – little Maude from the street above – the very little girl of whom Elsie had been envious. She wore a broad gray hat, with a lovely Titian red feather, and a Titian red velvet Mother Hubbard cloak, and velvet leggings to match, and carried a lovely muff, while by a silken cord she led a dear little white dog, in a buff-and-silver blanket.

“Oh,” cried this beautiful little creature, bounding toward Elsie, “there you are! I saw you come around here after Sunday-school, and I’ve been hunting for you. See my little new dog! It’s a Christmas present, only it came yesterday. Is this where you live?” She looked shrinkingly up and down the narrow street, and at the squalid buildings in the distance. “And are these your brothers and sisters?”

Elsie laughed, and said no.

“What do you think?” began Lizy seriously, her large, wistful eyes, and chalk-white face, lending a strange pathos to her funny little speech, “this girl here,” and she pointed to Elsie, “is going to have cherry-pie.”

“Is she?” said Maude; “that is nice. I like cherry-pie, but we don’t have any in winter.”

“We do,” said Elsie proudly. “My grandma puts up lots of cans of cherries, when our cherry-tree bears, and Christmas-time we have cherry-pie, and sometimes, when we have company, we have cherry-sauce for tea.”

“I’d like some cherry-pie,” said Maude imperiously. “Little girl, give us some of your cherry-pie?”

The hungry group of ragged boys and girls gathered about with Maude. She was beginning some sort of an explanation, that the cherry-pie was her grandma’s, and not hers, when a bell rang in the distance, and Maude darted away.

“That’s for me,” she cried, hastening away, and pulling the buff-and-silver-coated doggie after her. “Good-by, little girl! I wish I could have some of that cherry-pie.”

She tripped daintily away down the side street, and the children watched her until she was out of sight. “I ’spose,” said Luke, with a sigh, “I ’spose she has dinner every day.”

“I have dinner every day,” cried Elsie.

“Do you?” said Lizy, devouring this favored child of fortune with her great, wistful eyes. “I don’t. Oh! I’d like some of that cherry-pie.”

Just then Elsie saw her father coming up the street and ran to meet him, while the other children started for their homes in the square below.

The next morning there was so much excitement that Elsie never thought of the poor children on the next square, nor of Millie, nor of Maude, until the Christmas dinner was nearly over and the cherry-pie came on.

“Oh!” she cried, “you don’t know, grandma, how nice everybody thinks it is that we can have cherry-pie.”

“Do they?” said grandma kindly. “Well, I do hope the pie’s turned out well.”

Elsie noticed that some of the pie was left after all had been served. A bright idea darted into her head, and she was out of the room in a trice. On went cloak and hood, and she dashed around the corner to see if she could find Maude. Yes, there she was, playing with her blanketed doggie on the broad sidewalk.

“Come!” cried Elsie, catching hold of Maude’s hand. “Come quick! There’s lots of cherry-pie! Come and have some!”

As they neared Millie’s house they met that little girl on the walk, and she was easily persuaded to join the party.

“Now,” said Elsie, running on in advance, “let’s get Sammie and Lizy, and those other ones.”

They flew down the street, and soon found the objects of their search. The watchword, “cherry-pie,” was sufficient, and in the twinkling of an eye, they were at Grandma Perch’s door. Then, for the first time, Elsie felt a little misgiving. Perhaps there wasn’t pie enough to go round. And what would grandma say?

But she marched bravely in, her eager little crowd of companions at her heels.

“See here, grandma,” she said, “here are a lot of children who want some cherry-pie.”

“Dear heart!” exclaimed grandma, in dismay, looking down at the motley group with lifted hands. “Why, Elsie! there isn’t pie enough for more’n three little pieces, but, bless ’em!” for the look on some of those pinched, hungry faces went to grandma’s heart, in the abundance and mirth of her own Christmas day, “I’ll have a cherry-pie made for ’em in less’n no time. There’s pie-crust in my pan, and the oven is hot; just go out and play, children, and I’ll call you in presently.”

And “presently” they were called in to behold a mammoth cherry-pie, baked in a tin pan, and they had just as much as was good for them, even to Maude’s doggie. Maude left first, for she wasn’t hungry, and, besides, she knew that her mamma would worry about her long absence; but the little starved boys and girls from “the square below,” didn’t go for a long time. To tell the truth, grandma didn’t stop at giving them cherry-pie. They had some turkey, and some mashed potato, and turnip, and some hot coffee, besides.

“Tain’t often I can give,” said grandma afterward. “But we’ve been prospered, and I can’t bear to see anybody hungry on Christmas day.”

After they had all gone, Elsie sat with her heart full of quiet happiness, rocking in her little rocking-chair. She was meditating vaguely on the envy she had felt toward Maude, and her general feeling of discontent. At last she spoke to grandma, who happened to be sitting beside her.

“Most everybody has things some other folks don’t have,” she remarked, rather vaguely.

Grandma understood her.

“Dear heart!” she cried again, for that was her pet name for Elsie. “That’s right! There’s mercies for everybody, if they’d only reckon ’em up – and Christmas day’s a first-rate time to remember it!”

BERTIE’S RIDE

Here’s a nice state of things! We have run short of candles for the Tree, and of course the shops will be shut to-morrow, and the day after. What is to be done? Almost anything else might have been managed in some way, but a Christmas Tree in semi-darkness – can anything more dismal be imagined?” And Alice Chetwynd’s usually bright face looks nearly as gloomy as the picture she has called up.

“What’s the row?” cries schoolboy Bertie, planting two good-natured, if somewhat grubby hands on his sister’s shoulders. “Alice in the dumps? That is something quite new. Can’t you cut some big candles in two and stick them about? Here’s Cousin Mildred – ask her. She’ll be sure to hit upon something.”