THE CULT OF THE CANDY CANE

When the littler boy looked fairly into the frosty gray of that Christmas morning, the trailed banner of his faith was snatched once more aloft; and in the breast of his complacent brother there swelled the conviction that one does ill to flaunt one’s skepticism, when the rewards of belief are substantial and imminent.  For before them was an array of gifts such as neither had ever looked upon before, save as forbidden treasure of the few persons whose immense wealth enables them to keep toy-shops.

The tale of the princely Saint was now authenticated delightfully.  That which had made him seem unreal in moments of spiritual laxity ­the impenetrable secrecy of his private life ­was now seen to enhance manyfold his wondrous givings.  Here was a charm which could never have sat the display before them had it been dryly bought in their presence from one of the millionaire toy-shop keepers.  For a wondering moment they looked from their beds, sputtering, gibbering, gasping, with cautious calls one to the other.  Then having proved speech to be no disenchantment they shouted and laughed crazily.  There followed a scramble from the beds and a swift return from the cold, each bearing such of the priceless bits as had lain nearest.  And while these were fondled or shot or blown upon or tasted or wound up, each according to its wonderful nature, they looked farther afield seeing other and ever new packages bulk mysteriously into the growing light; bundles quickening before their eyes with every delight to be imagined of a Saint with epicurean tastes and prodigal habits ­bundles that looked as if a mere twitch at the cord would expose their hidden charms.

The littler boy now wore a unique fur cap that let down to cover the neck and face, with openings wonderfully contrived for the eyes, nose and mouth ­an easy triumph, surely, over the deadliest cold known to man.  In one hand he flourished a brass-handled knife with both of its blades open; with the other he clasped a striped trumpet, into the china mouthpiece of which he had blown the shreds of a caramel, not meaning to; and here he was made to forget these trifles by discovering at the farther side of the room a veritable rocking-horse, a creature that looked not only magnificently willing, but superbly untamable, with a white mane and tail of celestial flow, with alert, pointed ears of maroon leather nailed nicely to the right spot.  At this marvel he stared in that silence which is the highest power of joy:  a presentiment had been his that such a horse, curveting on blue rockers, would be found on this very morning.  Two days before had he in an absent moment beheld a vision of this horse poised near the door of the attic; but when he ran to make report of it below, thinking to astound people by his power of insight, Clytemnestra, bidding him wait in the kitchen where she was baking, had hurried to the spot and found only some rolls of blue cambric.  She had rather shamed him for giving her such a start.  A few rolls of shiny blue cambric against a white wall did not, she assured him, make a rocking-horse; and, what was more, they never would.  Now the vision came back with a significance that set him all a-thrill.  Next time Clytie would pay attention to him.  He laughed to think of her confusion now.

But here again, at the very zenith of a shout, was he frozen to silence by a vision ­this time one too obviously of no ponderable fabric.  There in the corner, almost at his hand, seemed to be a thing that he had dreamed of possessing only after he entered Heaven ­a candy cane:  one of fearful length, thick of girth, vast of crook, and wide in the spiral stripe that seemed to run a living flame before his ravished eyes, beginning at the bottom and winding around and around the whole dizzy height.  Fearfully in nerve-braced silence he leaned far out of his bed to bring against this amazing apparition one cool, impartial forefinger of skeptic research.  It did not vanish; it resisted his touch.  Then his heart fainted with rapture, for he knew the unimagined had become history.

Standing before the windows of the great, he had gazed long at these creations.  They were suspended on a wire across the window in various lengths, from little ones to sizes too awesome to compute.  On one occasion so long had he stood motionless, so deep the trance of his contemplation, that the winter cold had cruelly bitten his ears and toes.  He had not supposed that these things were for mere vulgar ownership.  He had known of boys who had guns and building-blocks and rocking-horses as well as candy in the lesser degrees; but never had he known, never had he been able to hear of one who had owned a thing like this.  Indeed, among the boys he knew, it was believed that they were not even to be seen save on their wire at Christmas time in the windows of the rich.  One boy had hinted that the “set” would not be broken even if a person should appear with money enough to buy a single one.  And here before him was the finest of them all, receding neither from his gaze or his touch, one as long as the longest of which Heaven had hitherto vouchsafed him a chilling vision through glass; here was the same fascinating union of transcendent merit with a playful suggestion of downright utility.  And he had blurted out to Clytie that the news of there being no Santa Claus was all over town!  He was ashamed, and the moment became for him one of chastening in which he humbled his unbelieving spirit before this symbol of a more than earthly goodness ­a symbol in whose presence, while as yet no accident had rendered it less than perfect, he would never cease to feel the spiritual uplift of one who has weighed the fruits of faith and found them not wanting.

He issued from some bottomless stupor of ecstacy to hear the door open to Allan’s shouts; then to see the opening nicely filled again by the figure of Clytemnestra, who looked over at them with eager, shining eyes.  He was at first powerless to do more than say “Oh, Clytie!” with little impotent pointings toward the candy cane.  But the action now in order served to restore him to a state of working sanity.  There was washing and dressing after Clytie had the fire crackling; the forgetting of some treasures to remember others; and the conveyance of them all down stairs to the big sitting-room where the sun came in over the geraniums in the bay-window, and where the Franklin heater made the air tropic.  The rocking-horse was led and pushed by both boys; but to Clytie’s responsible hand alone was intrusted the more than earthly candy cane.

Downstairs there was the grandfather to greet ­erect, fresh-shaven, flashing kind eyes from under stern brows.  He seemed to be awkwardly pleased with their pleasure, yet scarce able to be one with them; as if that inner white spirit of his fluttered more than its wont to be free, yet found only tiny exits for its furtive flashes of light.

Breakfast was a chattering and explosive meal, a severe trial, indeed, to the patience of the littler boy, who decided that he wished never to eat breakfast again.  During the ten days that he had been a member of the household a certain formality observed at the beginning of each meal had held him in abject fascination, so that he looked forward to it with pleased terror.  This was that, when they were all seated, there ensued a pause of precisely two seconds ­no more and no less ­a pause that became awful by reason of the fact that every one grew instantly solemn and expectant ­even apprehensive.  His tingling nerves had defined his spine for him before this pause ended, and then, when the roots of his hair began to crinkle, his grandfather would suddenly bow low over his plate and rumble in his head.  It was very curious and weirdly pleasurable, and it lasted one minute.  When it ceased the tension relaxed instantly, and every one was friendly and cordial and safe again.

This morning the little boy was actually impatient during the rumble, so eager was he to talk.  And not until he had been assured by both his grandfather and Clytie that Santa Claus meant everything he left to be truly kept; that he came back for nothing ­not even for a cane ­of any kind ­that he might have left at a certain house by mistake ­not until then would he heave the sigh of immediate security and consent to eat his egg and muffins, of which latter Clytie had to bring hot ones from the kitchen because both boys had let the first plate go cold.  For Clytie, like Grandfather Delcher, was also one of the last of a race of American giants ­in her case a race preceding servants, that called itself “hired girls” ­who not only ate with the family, but joyed and sorrowed with it and for long terms of years was a part of it in devotion, responsibility and self-respect.  She had, it is true, dreaded the coming of these children, but from the moment that the two cold, subdued little figures had looked in doubting amazement at the four kinds of preserves and three kinds of cake set out for their first collation in the new home, she had rejoiced unceasingly in a vicarious motherhood.

Within an hour after breakfast the morning’s find had been examined, appraised, and accorded perpetual rank by merit.  Grandfather Delcher made but one timid effort to influence decisions.

“Now, Bernal, which do you like best of all your presents?” he asked.  With a heart too full for words the littler boy had pointed promptly but shyly at his candy cane.  Not once, indeed, had he been able to say the words “candy cane.”  It was a creation which mere words were inadequate to name.  It was a presence to be pointed at.  He pointed again firmly when the old man asked, “Are you quite certain, now, you like it best of all?” ­suggestively ­“better than this fine book with this beautiful picture of Joseph being sold away by his wicked brothers?”

The questioner had turned then to the older boy, who tactfully divined that a different answer would have pleased the old man better.

“And what do you like best, Allan?”

“Oh, I like this fine and splendid book best of all!” ­and he read from the title-page, in the clear, confident tones of the pupil who knows that the teacher’s favour rests upon him ­“’From Eden to Calvary; or through the Bible in a year with our boys and girls; a book of pleasure and profit for young persons on Sabbath Afternoon.  By Grandpa Silas Atterbury, the well-known author and writer for young people.”

His glance toward his brother at the close was meant to betray the consciousness of his own superiority to one who dallied sensuously with created objects.

But the unspiritual one was riding the new horse at a furious gallop, and the glance of reproof was unnoted save by the old man ­who wondered if it might be by any absurd twist that the boy most like the godless father were more godly than the one so like his mother that every note of his little voice and every full glance of his big blue eyes made the old heart flutter.

In the afternoon came callers from the next house; Dr. Crealock, rubicund and portly, leaning on his cane, to pass the word of seasonable cheer with his old friend and pastor; and with him his tiny niece to greet the grandchildren of his friend.  The Doctor went with his host to the study on the second floor, where, as a Christmas custom, they would drink some Madeira, ancient of days, from a cask prescribed and furnished long since by the doctor.

The little boy was for the moment left alone with the tiny niece; to stare curiously, now that she was close, at one of whom he had caught glimpses in a window of the big house next door.  She was clad in a black velvet cloak and hood, with pink satin next her face inside the hood, and she carried a large closely-wrapped doll which she affected to think might have taken cold.  With great self-possession she doffed her cloak and overshoes; then slowly and tenderly unwound the wrappings of the doll, talking meanwhile in low mothering tones, and going with it to the fire when she had it uncloaked.  Of the boy who stared at her she seemed unconscious, and he could do no more than stand timidly at a little distance.  An eye-flash from the maid may have perceived his abjectness, for she said haughtily at length, “I’m astonished no one in this house knows where Clytie is!”

He drew nearer by as far as he could slowly spread his feet twice.

“I know ­now ­she went to get two glasses from the dresser to take to my grandfather and that gentleman.”  He felt voluble from the mere ease of the answer.  But she affected to have heard nothing, and he was obliged to speak again.

“Now ­why, I know a doll that shuts up her eyes every time she lies down.”

The doll at hand was promptly extended on the little lap and with a click went into sudden sleep while the mother rocked it.  He could have ventured nothing more after this pricking of his inflated little speech.  A moment he stood, suffering moderately, and then would have edged cautiously away with the air of wishing to go, only at this point, without seeming to see him, she chirped to him quite winningly in a soft, warm little voice, and there was free talk at once.  He manfully let her tell of all her silly little presents before talking of his own.  He even listened about the doll, whose name Santa Claus had thoughtfully painted on the box in which she came; it was a French name, “Fragile.”

Then, being come to names, they told their own.  Hers, she said, was Lillian May.

“But your uncle, now ­that gentleman ­he called you Nancy when you came in.”  He waited for her solving of this.

“Oh, Uncle Doctor doesn’t know it yet, what my real name is.  They call me Nancy, but that’s a very disagreeable name, so I took Lillian May for my real name.  But I tell very few persons,” she added, importantly.  Here he was at home; he knew about choosing a good name.

“Did you give up the gold-piece you found?” he asked.  But this puzzled her.

“‘A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches,’” he reminded her.  “Didn’t you find a gold-piece like Ben Holt did?”

But it seemed she had never found anything.  Indeed, once she had lost a dime, even on the way to spending it for five candy bananas and five jaw-breakers.  Plainly she had chosen her good name without knowing of the case of Ben Holt.  Then he promised to show her something the most wonderful in all the world, which she would never believe without seeing it, and led her to where the candy cane towered to their shoulders in its corner.  He saw at once that it meant less to her than it did to him.

“Oh, it’s a candy cane!” she said, calling it a candy cane commonly, with not even a hush of tone, as one would say “a brick house” or “a gold watch,” or anything.  She, promptly detecting his disappointment at her coldness, tried to simulate the fervour of an initiate, but this may never be done so as to deceive any one who has truly sensed the occult and incommunicable virtue of the candy cane.  For one thing, she kept repeating the words “candy cane” baldly, whenever she could find a place for them in her soulless praise; whereas an initiate would not once have uttered the term, but would have looked in silence.  Another initiate, equally silent by his side, would have known him to be of the brotherhood.  Perhaps at the end there would have been respectful wonder expressed as to how long it would stay unbroken and so untasted.  Still he was not unkind to her, except in ways requisite to a mere decent showing forth of his now ascertained superiority.  He helped her to a canter on the new horse; and even pretended a polite and superficial interest in the doll, Fragile, which she took up often.  Being a girl, she had to be humoured in that manner.  But any boy could see that the thing went to sleep by turning its eyes inside out, and its garters were painted on its fat legs.  These things he was, of course, too much the gentleman to point out.

When the Doctor and his host came down stairs late in the afternoon, the little boy and girl were fairly friendly.  Only there was talk of kissing at the door, started by the little girl’s uncle, and this the little boy of course could not consider, even though he suddenly wished it of all things ­for he had never kissed any one but his father and mother.  He had told Clytie it made him sick to be kissed.  Now, when the little girl called to him as if it were the simplest thing in the world, he could not go.  And then she stabbed him by falsely kissing the complacent Allan standing by, who thereupon smirked in sickening deprecation and promptly rubbed his cheek.

Not until the pair were out in the street did his man-strength come back to him, and then he could only burn with indignation at her and at Allan.  He wondered that no one was shocked at him for feeling as he did.  But, as they seemed not to notice him, he rode his horse again.  No mad gallop now, but a slow, moody jog ­a pace ripe for any pessimism.

“Clytie!” he called imperiously, after a little.  “Do you think there’s a real bone in this horse ­like a regular horse?”

Clytie responded from the dining-room with a placid “I guess so.”

“If I sawed into its neck, would the saw go right into a real bone?”

“My suz! what talk!  Well?”

“I know there ain’t any bone in there, like a regular horse.  It’s just a wooden bone.”

Nor was this his last negative thought of the day.  It came to him then and there with cruel, biting plainness, that no one else in the house felt as he did toward his chief treasure.  Allan didn’t.  He had spent hardly a moment with it.  Clytie didn’t; he had seen her pick it up when she dusted the sitting-room; there was sacrilege in her very grasp of it; and his grandfather seemed hardly to know of its existence.  The little girl who had chosen the good name of Lillian May might have been excused; but not these others.  If his grandfather was without understanding in such a matter, in what, then, could he be trusted?

He descended to a still lower plane before he fell asleep that night.  Even if he had one of them, he would probably never have a whole row, graduated from a pigmy to a mammoth, to hang on a wire across the front window, after the manner of the rich, and dazzle the outer world into envy.  The mood was but slightly chastened when he remembered, as he now did, that on last Christmas he had received only one pretentious candy rooster, falsely hollow, and a very uninteresting linen handkerchief embroidered with some initials not his own.  He fell asleep on a brutal reflection that the cane could be broken accidentally and eaten.