LOUISE CHOLLET
KING NUTCRACKER prepared for the Christmas feast with uncommon splendour, for on that day Santa Claus had promised his three sons—what do you suppose? A pony or a boat apiece? Of what use to bring such things to Prince Nutcracker and Prince Buttons, who were men, while for the little Prince Pepin, he had everything that he wanted since he first learned to cry for it! No, Santa Claus had promised them each a wish! What would the princes wish? Nobody knew. For though the Court Journal declared that of course their wishes would insure the happiness of their subjects, the Court Journal knew no more of the matter than you or I; and as all this happened before we were born, that is just nothing. Nevertheless, for weeks beforehand, the entire court was in a state of preparation. The Duke of the Powder Closet powdered the comb wigs at such a rate that they were obliged to station a line of pages from the Powder closet to the pantry, who passed up refreshments continually to keep his strength up. The Queen wore her hair in curl-papers for a week, and spent the most of her time in the kitchen where the pies and plum-pudding were in making; and his Majesty grumbled that he could not stir without stumbling over a trumpeter, practising his bit of the Christmas chorus in a corner. For himself, the king ordered a new blue-velvet coat, and sent his crown and sceptre to be mended and rubbed up at a goldsmith’s. All the pink pages had new green slippers. Ten of these pages were to help Santa Claus out of his sleigh and ten were to hold the reindeer; and all the time they were to sing a song of welcome, and to step all together. So they practised five hours a day with the Lord High Fiddlesticks; and the Lord High Fiddle-stick bawled himself hoarse, while the pages lost flesh and temper in trying to learn.
What a pity, after all this pains, that Santa Claus left his reindeer behind him, and, slipping in just when nobody was looking for him, stood among them, not with his Christmas face, but looking sad and surly! “If you were my boys,” said he gruffly, “catch me giving you a wish. I would shut you up in an iceberg first! However, a promise is a promise. Let us hear what you have to say.”
All the courtiers stood on tiptoe, and you might have heard a pin drop, they were so anxious to know what the princes wished.
Pepin, though the youngest, being a saucy, spoiled boy, spoke first. “A prince should always have his own way,” said Pepin. “Now there are a great many things that vex me. Sometimes, when I am flying my kite, there is no wind. Now I think that a prince should always be able to fly his kite: if not, I might as well be any other boy. In the same way, it rains when I am going to drive, and the sun sets before I am ready; and my ball will tumble down when I want it to stay up, and sometimes it is too warm, and sometimes it is too cold; in short, there is no end to my annoyances, and I want to regulate these things myself.”
Santa Claus looked hard at Pepin to see if he was quite in earnest. Pepin looked back at Santa Claus with a serious face. “Have your wish while you remain a prince,” said Santa Claus.
The courtiers stared, but no one had time to make any remarks; for Prince Nutcracker, in a violent hurry lest Buttons should get ahead of him, wished for the luck-penny. Now you know whoever has a luck-penny will make money, more money, much money, and will never lose any.
“But there is one objection,” remarked Santa Claus. “By continual use, the luck-penny by and by will look larger to you than anything else.”
“That is nothing,” said Nutcracker, slipping the luck-penny into his pocket.
Prince Buttons, blushing to the tips of his ears, wished “to marry the shoemaker’s sweet daughter, and that the spirit of Christmas might live in their house the year round.”
“Give us your hand!” cried Santa Claus, pulling out the holly-sprig from his cap, and giving it to Buttons, but the King jumped up, fuming and spluttering: “You idiot! You ninny! The daughter of the shoemaker and the Christmas spirit, indeed. Christmas fiddlestick and fol-de-rol! Out of my sight!”
His Royal Highness was in such a rage that he actually lifted his royal foot to kick the prince. The Queen fainted; the courtiers cried, “Oh!” Prince Buttons ran away in the midst of the hubbub; Santa Claus disappeared; and, to make matters better, the court suddenly found itself in darkness. It was high noon, but the sun had popped out of the sky like a snuffed-out candle. Nobody could find candles or matches, and if the confusion was great in the palace, it was worse in the city. People were left standing in darkness at the shops and ferries and depots. People who were eating dinners, and people who were getting them, and people who had just come out to see Christmas, were all served alike. Everybody was in a fright; some screamed one thing and some another; and all the time there was nothing the matter, only Prince Pepin, who was in a hurry to see the arch of Chinese lanterns, had ordered the sun to set.
“See here, Pepin,” cried the King in a passion, “order the sun up again, and if I catch you doing such a thing——”
Pepin, who was afraid of his father, did not wait for the rest of the sentence; so, just as everybody had lighted candles, or turned on the gas, there was the sun again.
“Seems to me,” said Pepin, sulkily, “I am not having my own way after all,” and he went in a wretched humour to play battle-door and shuttlecock. He made bad strokes, and the shuttlecock tumbled on the ground. “Hateful thing, forever coming down!” cried Pepin.
“It only obeys the law of gravitation, my dear,” said the Queen.
“I wish there was no law of gravitation,” snapped Pepin.
Whisk! Pepin was flying through the air as if he had been shot from a gun. Kicking frantically, he saw the King, the Queen, everything, coming after him! Something hit him hard on the nose. He was in a perfect storm of great round apples, flying in all directions! Bang! bump! on his head, in his mouth, on his shoulders! How he wished they had stayed in the market! Pepin dodged and squalled; the air was full of stones and timbers; a horse was kicking just over his head; somebody had him by the hair, and somebody else by the legs, for, of course, everybody clutched in all directions to save himself.
“Oh!” screamed Pepin amidst the general uproar of barking, neighing, braying, clucking and shouting, “I wish the law of gravitation was back again.”
At once Pepin, the King, the Queen, and the people, were on their feet. Everything was in its accustomed place,—everybody a little rumpled, but nobody hurt. The King was disposed to be angry, but the Queen declared that Pepin was only a little thoughtless, the courtiers murmured, “Quite natural,” and the Court Journal pronounced the affair the best joke of the season; but the people looked very glum over it.
That made no difference to Pepin, who continued his jokes very much at his ease. Often, when he was lazy, the sun did not rise until noon; and people might twist and turn in bed, or go about their business by candle-light, as they chose; when, on the contrary, he found his play amusing, he sometimes kept the sun in the sky till nine o’clock at night, while all the children in the city were crying for sleepiness. Three nations declared war on King Nutcracker, because Pepin sometimes ordered a dead calm for weeks, and sometimes had the winds blowing from all quarters at once, and navigation was quite impossible. The doctors were almost worn out, and the people died on all sides from constant violent changes of weather, for, if my young master got heated in his play, he made nothing of ordering the thermometer down to sixty degrees. The farmers were all in despair, for Pepin hardly allowed a drop of rain to fall; and having a fancy for skating in summer, he ruined what harvest there was by a week of ice and snow in July.
Remonstrance was quite useless, for Pepin was no longer afraid of his father, since he could leave him at any time in total darkness. So one night there was heard a loud knocking at the palace gate, and, though the pages and the guards and the watchmen turned over on the other side, and tried very hard to go to sleep again, the knocking grew so loud that they were obliged to get up and see what was the matter. There was a mob at the gates; the people, tired of Pepin’s jokes, had rebelled. Some ran one way and some another. Prince Nutcracker put his luck-penny in his pocket and walked out of the back door; no one stayed to look after the King and Queen, who were running about in nightcap and slippers, in a terrible fright; and if it had not been for Buttons, who, on the first alarm, ran to the palace, from which he had been kicked out six months before, they would have been in a sorry case, I think.
On the next day the Court Journal came out with a new heading. It was called now the People’s Journal, and it said that, on the night before, old Mr. and Mrs. Nutcracker and their boy Pepin had escaped, nobody knew how, and nobody cared; and that young Mr. Nutcracker, the former heir to the throne, had opened a fine new store on Main Street.
So, you perceive, there was no longer a royal family.
As Nutcracker had the luck-penny, of course he made money in his new store. Every day, and all day long, he looked straight at the penny. At first he used to see other things; but as he took no notice of them, by and by the penny grew so large that it covered them all, and then he had no more trouble. He made money all the year round and he gave none of it away. None to Pepin, because he had brought about their misfortunes. None to Buttons, because he might have wished for something better, if he liked, than a holly-bush and the shoemaker’s daughter. None to anybody, because why should not people work and earn money, as he had done, if they wanted it? And every day he grew more and more like his penny,—that is, of less and less use for anything that was not buying and selling. For Santa Claus, he had not seen him in ten years, till one Christmas eve, when hearing a sudden jingling of sleigh-bells, he looked up and saw Santa Claus just coming down on the hearth-rug.
“I stopped my sleigh,” said Santa Claus, “to see if you had anything to send your father and brothers.”
“Why should I send them anything?” answered Nutcracker, surlily.
Santa Claus put his hands down deep in his fur pockets, as if he was trying to hold himself. “What for! Aren’t you rich and they poor? Your own flesh and blood? Confound it, man! if you have not the instinct of a son and a brother, you must feel the Christmas spirit at least once a year in your heart, urging you to love and kindness towards your fellow-men.”
“Well, I don’t, then,” snarled Nutcracker. “Men need holidays to rest, I suppose, though I don’t; but for Christmas being any better, or having anything more in it than any other day, I say, bosh! Give me plenty of money, and I can buy all the love and kindness I want! And if other folks want it, let them work and earn money as I do, and——”
Nutcracker never finished this speech, because—he could not. A singular dumb, dry and hard feeling had taken possession of him. His legs were gone. At least he could see them nowhere; so were his arms. Something wrapped him around. He had a strange notion that he had grown round, and that—it sounds ridiculous—but Nutcracker was quite positive that he was in a table drawer among some coin, and that he was—a copper penny.
By and by he heard a shrill voice, “Mr. Nutcracker, Mr. Nutcracker!” That was his wife. Then he heard his children calling, “Papa, papa!” Then a running up and down stairs. They were searching for him. Then somebody declared that he had disappeared, somebody else said that he must be advertised for, and, taking a handful of money from the drawer, Nutcracker among the rest, carried him to a newspaper office, and paid him in at a window for an advertisement about his own disappearance. Two minutes after, the man at the window gave him in change to a gentleman, who paid him out to a newsboy, who bought an apple with him of a grocer, who gave him in change again to a shoemaker, who dropped him into his soiled and patched pocket, where Nutcracker found nothing else but a five-dollar gold-piece.
This shoemaker was Buttons. Was not this a charming way for two brothers to meet?
The pocket into which Nutcracker dropped was a very poor pocket,—soiled and patched, as I said; but Nutcracker had not been in it five minutes when he felt—how shall I tell you? It is not easy to describe feelings, but this shoemaker, who walked in the biting wind with no overcoat and his hands in his pockets, had warmth and sparkle in his heart that made Nutcracker feel brighter, though he could not tell why. There were Christmas trees on all corners, and Christmas wreaths piled on the stands, and at every tree and wreath Buttons warmed more and more. There were women going home from market, with a broad grin on their faces, and a drum or a little bedstead on the top of the cranberries and turkey and Buttons laughed back at them as he walked, whistling and looking around him; and splendid ladies came smiling out of the shops, and Buttons smiled at them; till between the signs of Christmas and the pleasant faces he got in such a glow that Nutcracker would hardly have said that he needed an overcoat.
All this time Buttons walked very fast and very straight till he came to a certain shop with a low door. Outside of this door was a clothes stand, and on this stand hung an overcoat, marked “Only Five Dollars.”
Buttons stopped. “Now,” said he to himself, “I need an overcoat. I have got five dollars in my pocket. Shall I buy this overcoat?”
Then Buttons imagined himself in the overcoat. His coat-tails would not fly out, and of course he could not put his hands in his pockets; and if not, where should he put them? Buttons took another look at the coat. It was certainly good for five dollars.
“But,” said Buttons, “if I buy it they will have no Christmas dinner, and Ma Nutcracker has set her heart on chicken and pudding. My little wife will never know the difference between Christmas and any other day. Poor Pepin, in his bed, will never know any difference. I shall come home in my brutal overcoat and that will be all.”
Then he began checking off on his fingers like this: “A dressing-gown for father, a shawl for mother, a new gown for the little wife, goodies for the children, a box of paints for Pepin, and the dinner.” Then he gave a little sigh, and, putting his hands again in his pockets, walked away as fast as he came. Do you suppose that he bought all these things with the five-dollar gold-piece? Nutcracker could not see, of course, but he thought not, for how could he?
Buttons lived upstairs, in a mean little house in a dirty street. His rooms were small, and they were crowded. There were old Mr. and Mrs. Nutcracker, who never forgot that they had been king and queen, and that Buttons’ wife was a shoemaker’s daughter, and never remembered that Buttons had returned their cruelty with kindness, and I think were not very nice people to live with. There was Pepin, who had been hurt, poor boy! in escaping from the palace, and who had never risen since from his bed. There was Buttons’ pleasant-faced wife; there were three fat children; there was the holly-bush, which had grown into a great tree; and there was—Nutcracker did not know what—but something, he was quite sure, for which he had been searching all his life.
The three fat children seized upon Buttons; one by each hand and one by his coat-tails.
“Ah!” said Buttons, pretending to groan. “I am so tired. Let the best child look outside of the door and see what he finds.”
The best child opened the door cautiously, half afraid, and set up a shout. “Ma, come quick! here’s a chicken, and cranberries, and a paper,—it’s raisins!”
“Raisins!” screamed the other children.
“A chicken!” cried old Mrs. Nutcracker.
“Christmas wreaths!” exclaimed his wife, peeping out into the little dark hall. “Why, surely, you never——”
“Made them? Yes, I did,” said Buttons, his eyes dancing. “In the woods. The cedars gave me boughs for nothing.”
“Christmas wreaths!” repeated Pepin from his bed. “Give me one,” and, seizing it in his thin fingers, “Ah! how nice it smells,—like the woods!” he said, laying his pale cheek on it. “I wish I could see a tree once more.”
Buttons jumped up and ran downstairs very fast, and they heard him coming back dragging something after him, bump, bump! The something rustled and cracked and filled the room with a strong, spicy scent of the woods. Buttons lifted it so that it stood just in front of Pepin’s bed. It was a spruce-tree. Its thick, strong branches spread out wide. Its top brushed the ceiling. Birds had built nests in its branches, mosses had lived about its roots. It knew all the secrets of the woods and the sky and the rains, and it told you about them, as well as it could, whenever you stirred its branches. The little wife hung the wreaths all about the room,—one on every nail, one over each window, one over Pepin, one each on the backs of grandpa’s and grandma’s chairs. It was getting dark, and the firelight came out and danced on the ceiling and on the white cover of the little table. Pepin lay looking at the tree. The children chattered like little birds; even Grandpa and Grandma Nutcracker were smiling. The room was like a spicy cosy little nest. What was it, Nutcracker wondered more and more, here in these people’s faces for which he had laboured all his life?
Suddenly Pepin cried out, “O, there is something here hanging on a branch of the tree!”
“Is it possible?” answered Buttons. “Then you had better take it down, Pepin.”
Pepin took it down. “Why, it is for me,” he said, looking at the name on the wrapper.
“Then you had better open it,” answered Buttons in just the same tone as before.
Pepin untied the string, but his hands shook. “It is square,” he said, feeling it. He took off one wrapper. “It is hard,” he said again, trembling all over. He took off the second wrapper, and it nearly dropped from his fingers.
“A box of paints!” screamed the children, dancing around.
Pepin tried to speak, but he could not get out a word. He kissed the box, he laughed, but you could see he was near crying. The little wife’s eyes were full of tears also.
“Come! come!” said Buttons. “Do people cry over Christmas gifts?” There were no tears in his eyes. He was ready to dance, though now he would have no overcoat. As for Nutcracker, he had a curious tingling sensation all over him, though he was only a copper penny; and, happening to look towards the hearth, he saw Santa Claus. The old fellow had tied up his reindeer and slipped down the chimney, and was winking hard, and wiping his eyes, while pretending to blow his nose.
“I have it! I have got it, and know what it is!” cried Nutcracker, at the top of his lungs. “The Christmas spirit lives here all the year round, and these people love one another, and are happy. That is what I never had at home—happiness; that is what my money could not buy. That is why I was every day trying to make more money—always hoping to make money enough to buy it.”
Should you not think that Buttons would have been very much frightened to hear such a voice coming out of his pocket? No doubt he would, only, in some mysterious way, Nutcracker found himself on his legs again, and he was walking as fast as he could with a pocketful of money, to buy a monstrous turkey, and the best overcoat in the city, and boots and a hat to match, and a new gown, and a dressing-gown, and a shawl and a set of paints, and a great bouquet, and a basket of toys, and candies—for whom? Why, for Buttons, and Grandpa and Grandma Nutcracker, and the pleasant little wife, and Pepin, and the children, of course!