"'Where are you going to?' says he.

"If there's one thing I can't put up with it's impudence from a railroad man.

"'What in the hereafter business is that of yours?' says I. 'You gimme a ticket, quick, or there'll be a wreckin' train due at this spot.'

"'Well, how can I tell what to do?' says he. 'Pay me for the ticket, and you get it.'

"'Sir!' says I. 'Do you mean to insinooate that I can't or won't pay for a dirty little railroad ticket? There you are--gimme a ticket!'

"I slapped what I had loose on the counter; he counted it careful and give me my paste-board, just as the engine come a-hissin' and a-roarin' in. Gee, she did look bully to me! I hadn't seen a train of cars for two years. We detained 'em no longer than was necessary to treat the engineer and the rest of the crew proper in the matter of drinks, and I was off, leanin' back comfortable in the smoker, puffin' huge and prosperous puffs of real seegar smoke into the air, and with the careless thumb of wealth tucked into the armpit of my vest. I reckoned I must have dozed, for bimeby the conductor shook me by the arm and says, respectful, 'We're nearin'

your station, sir.'

"I looked out, and I see down the track the most lonesome inhabited spot on the face of this earth. If houses has ghosts I should say that the ghosts of some forty houses that had committed the crime of not bein' properly built had collected themselves there--why, even the snow around the cussed things looked second-hand.

"I made up my mind on the instant that I'd never really intended to go there. But it was too late now. I didn't propose to back down before that conductor.

"'The names of all these little towns is so much alike,' says I, 'that I've forgot the name of this one already.'

"'Yes?' says he, raisin' his eyebrows. Of course, as a matter of fact, I hadn't thought to look at my ticket; but having started on this line I meant to buck through.

"'Yes,' says I. 'Would you mind giving it to me?'

"'Oggsouash,' says he.

"There was silence for a second.

"'Hog's wash,' says I, musin'. 'Don't seem like I ort to have forgot that, does it?'

"'No,' says he; 'it don't.'

"There come a kind of awkward silence again, me thanking the Lord that we was almost there.

"'Injun name,' says the conductor.

"'Sure,' says I; 'of course; certainly; I remember now distinctly.

What saloon do you recommend?'

"'Saloon?' says he, steppin' back.

"'Saloon,' says I, wonderin' where he found the queerness of my words.

"'Saloon?' says he. 'Why, man, it's a Prohibition, Presbyterian, Vegetarian Colony. I didn't know what to make of your actions when you got aboard, but from your face and clothes I supposed you was one of them ministers coming to scare the kids to death for a Christmas present. Ain't you one of 'em?'

"'I'm a sort--sort of connection,' says I with my expirin' breath.

"He looked at me as if he couldn't quite see the connection.

'Well,' says he, 'here we are, and they're expectin' you, for there's a lady waitin' on the platform.'

"'A lady?' says I, risin' from my tomb. I'd begun to think before there was truth in the sayin', 'You can't win at two games on the same day,' but when I heard there was a lady waitin' for me--well, if there's any man in this here bull-pen can think what I thought, let him whisper it in confidence, and I'll make it right with him.

"I never knew how I got off that train of cars.

"Well, I oughtn't to have been scart--it was the littlest, thinnest, palest, tremblingest woman you ever saw--why, there wasn't a Mrs. Scraggs on the face of the earth that couldn't 'a'

dandled her in her arms like a baby.

"'Is this the Reverend Silas Hardcrop?' says she.

"'Yes, madam,' says I, thinkin' it best to humor her, even if she was small.

"'I wanted to meet you first--I wanted to say--to speak--there's something I felt I must tell you,' she says.

"Thinks I: 'No, you don't. So long's I've got a gun in each hind pocket I reckon the men folks and me will get long all right, but private conversations with ladies is off the bill-of-fare.' So I says:

"'Y-a-a-s?' in a tone of voice to put out a bonfire.

"'Oh, it doesn't matter,' she said quick and shaky; 'it was silly of me. I only thought----' Well, she was tremblin' with cold or somethin', and kind of near cryin', too--one of them women that wears themselves out by botherin' to be good, and if they are good, botherin' about what ought to be done next. In short, as the saying is, I forgot my part.

"'Why, you poor little critter,' says I; 'you're near froze to death--take a drop of this,' pullin' out a flask of Peg-leg's best.

"'What?' she says, starting back in horror. 'Can that be _whisky_?'

"'Madam!' says I, rememberin', 'how dast you? That's a prescription put up by my favorite physician--a small dose will do you a large good. Try a piece, and we'll go in the station, where it's warmer, I hope, and talk it over.'

"She strangled some, but downed a trifle.

"There was a good old lignite fire blazin' away 'n the station.

"'Now that you've been _so_ kind to me,' she says, 'I dare tell you what I thought.'

"She had stopped shiverin'--Peg-leg's best knocked shivers quick.

"'I don't want you to think I do not believe in our tenets, because I do, I _do_!' says she; 'but it's been such a hard and weary year, with no brightness in it, and the old times come to me so, and they haven't had anything--really, you know, and it's awful to think of Christmas going by without--without--I know it's a Pagan festival, and that Christians should pa.s.s the day in meditation and fasting, but--don't you see?'

"'Certainly,' says I. 'If there ever was a guilty party that didn't do it, why, she's not him--you and me agree there, entirely.'

"'I beg your pardon?' says she, lookin' at me with them scart-deer eyes of hers. 'I don't quite understand--I'm so stupid.'

"'Yes, that's what's apt to come of vegetables,' says I. 'But tell me more about the Pagan festival.'

"I fancy Peg-leg's best couraged her up some.

"'I don't think it's a Pagan festival for children to have fun and toys for Christmas. I don't,' she says, 'I can't. And to think of them sitting there in that cold church for hours to-morrow--ugh!'

she says.

"Well, dear friends and brothers, I did think of 'em sittin' in that cold church. There was a time when I uset to behave fine for a month previous to December twenty-fifth, for the priv'lige of seein' Uncle Santy Claus tumble down the chimbley; and I want to say right here that all the good times I have seen sence ain't got near enough to them good times to catch their dust. Besides which, the merry Christmas in gla.s.sified form with which I had encouraged myself at Peg-leg's, and the wad of that beautiful sensitive plant, the long green, which was reposin' on my heart, says to me: 'Scraggsy, spring yourself--jump, boy, jump!'

"And furthermore, in the wildest dreams of my youth I had never figgered on spendin' a cold and cloudy Christmas in the bosom of a Presbyterian, Prohibition, Vegetarian Colony. It stood to reason if I didn't do something to that colony the colony would do a thing to Scraggs. I made up my mind that right here was where I jarred Oggsouash to a finish.