Judge — December 7, 1907 — page 22: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

1G BILL was the ac- knowledged humorist of the alley gang. He had graduated from the school of wit and fun, which includes in its curric lum such side-splitting stunts as sprinkling broken glass and tacks in the way of auto- mobiles, and attaching empty cans to the tails of unsuspect- snow dogs, and throwing balls at the heads of strang: came a-slumming. Big Bill was now artistically above such things. He would no more be caught upsetting a fruit. stand or dropping adead rat into the sugar barrel in the little grocery at the end of the alley than Mark Twain would consent to * make faces” for the amusement of babies. Big Bill now turned ‘to the higher forms of humor—to the sort that meant some- thing. It was he who had cone and executed the ridiculous stunt ot pouring tar on the steps of old man + Let's go up dere an’ putit Jones's home last fall, one Sunday on de blink." * morning. And when old man Jones came out in his new suit to go to church and slid all the way down the steps and ruined his clothes, Big Bill's face came as near wearing a smile as it ever did—until the night before Christmas, when he played his best joke. Away down the alley, ina little ramshackle frame house that de- fied every rule of the building and health departments, lives the Sprig- gins family. Spriggins himself is at home only when he is out of the workhouse—but he hasn't been in since Christmas. Mrs. Spriggins is not only an invalid, but she takes in washing to keep the family, and when Spriggins didn't take her money from her there were occasions when a good square meal came on the table. There are three Sprig- gins children—ail under nine years of age, Bennie is the oldest, Freddie is seven, and Roselle is five. Christmas Eve, Big Bill, and Shorty McTodd, and Freckles King, and Limpy Kelly, and Jiggs Long were in the rear room of Jenowski’s saloon, with + bowls of suds” before them. They wanted to do some- thing funny, but, as Jiggs said, they had done everything funny except kill some one, and the cops wouldn’t stand for that. Big Bill had been sitting in silence for half an hour, and now he spoke. 5 he muttered, “isn’t dere a Sandy Claus act to be pulled off at dat choych up on de nex’ corner ?”” Sure !" gleefully exclaimed Shorty. “+ Let's go up dere an’ put it on de LlinI Naw,” declared Big Bill,“ Let dem have de show. Den let's go cop out de togs—an' I'll play Sandy Ciaus here in de alley.” It took a full minute for the complete sig- nificance of this plan to sink into the understand- ings of the others, then they agreed it was the 3 who ved best ever. “hear dem Spriggins kids talkin’ to-day to deir mudder,” said Big Bill.“ Dey was handi it out dat dis was de night Sandy was due to blow in wid de goods. Huh! Say, wot's de matter wid me bein’ Sandy, an’ breakin’ in dere an’ loadin’ dem up wid presents “ Wot?" asked Freckles King disgustedly. + Wot in‘ell would you do for presents ?” By Wilbur D. Nesbit, Illustrated by C. J. Taylor “Then the procession filed down the alley to the rickety steps leading up to the Spriggins domicile, Gadder up all de old truck around—empty bottles an’ cans an* Bill outlined lamely. ke dem in an’ spread ‘em all over de bed. Poke a Great! few empties in de stockin’s, an’ all dat sort 0° ing !" Limpy cried. “Tl be watchin’ at dat choych,” Big Bill planned, + an’ when de Sandy Claus guy gets t'roo wid his stunt I'll watch where he shucks his togs, an’ den I'll make a getaway wid dem. De rest is easy Along about ten o'clock Big Bill was in the shadowy hall off the Sunday-school room of «de choych,” and when the portly person who had enacted Santa Claus came forth, followed by shrieks of delight, Bill tiptoed softly after him to a rear room, waited until he emerged in his every-day clothing, then as silently slipped into the rear room, gathered up the wig, whiskers, and costume and let himself out of a window. Jiggs. Shorty, Freckles and Limpy helped him get into the dis- guise, and filled his pack with a choice collection of rocks, half-bricks, empty bottles, oldl cans, a discarded corset, an ash-sifter, an old egg- beater, and other material they had garnered in the garbage barrels of the neighborhood. Then the procession filed down the alley to the rickety steps leading up to the Spriggins domicile. They crept cau- tiously up the creaky steps, subduing their chuckles as best they might. At the door Big Bill shook a warning fist at them, and they stopped, while he pushed the door slowly open and went catlike into the house. A guttering candie stuck in an empty bottle on what once had been a mantel-shelf furnished sufficient illumination for Big Bill to see clearly, he being used to squinting into the dark. Spriggins was not at home, as was to have been expected on Christmas Eve, or any other eve. Mrs. Spriggins was sleeping the sleep of the weary and exhausted on a pallet on the floor near a heap of washing, over which she evidently had toiled all day and evening. Bennie and Freddie and little Roselle lay in an apology for a bed across the room from Mrs. Sprggins. Hanging from the mantel-shelf were three pairs of stock- ings, all darned and ragged, And pinned to one of the littlest stockings \as a piece of soiled paper. Bill tore this off and held it where the candle-light would strike it. He had softly placed his pack on the floor, ready to stutf the stock- ings, but as he read the litile note he turned and looked across the room at the children, ‘Then he tiptoed over to the hed and looked down at the three faces, The boys were sleeping calmly enough, and so was little Roselle, but on her white cheeks were streaks that told of tears, and in her little fingers was the stub of « pencil with which she had scrawled the note Big Bill had read, Big Bill looked back at his pack and muttered something under his breath, Then he rubbed his eyes. Then he swiftly picked up his pack and hurried to the door, where he found his partners waiting, ready to laugh over his account of his performance. “Tgot a dollar ana half,” he whispered to Jiggs. How much money you got ?* comicbooks.com