Life — December 4, 1913 — page 72: what you’re looking at

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

The Turning of the Worm A Christmas Story, by John Kendrick Bangs HE small boy yawned twice, and then, sitting up in bed, he reached out his hand and turned on the elec- tric light. His face, bearing all the usual marks of care characteristic of the six-year-old child of to-day, lit up for a moment as he caught sight of the rotund form of Santa Claus standing in the shadows over by the onyx mantelpiece, and then lapsed back into an expression of profound weari- ness. “O—it’s you, is it?” he said list- lessly, as he gazed contemptuously at the visitor. “ Why, yes, laddie,” said Santa Claus, realizing that he was caught and try- ing to put a smiling face on the mat- ter. “I’m me, all right.” “Without wasting any unnecessary time or breath upon the quality of your grammar,” said the child coldly, “and without demanding any credentials proving that you are not really a second-story man in search of loot, and assuming that you are what you ap- pear from your silly costume to be, let me ask you, sir, as man to man, how long you propose to continue this drivelling business of yours?” “ Drivelling business?” echoed Santa Claus, dumbfounded by the child's at- titude. “ Drivelling business is what I said,” said the child grimly, “and drivelling business is what you hearu me say. Of course, you don’t for a moment think that it’s any other kind of busi- ness, do you, sliding in like a sweep through a fellow’s chimney, and leav- ing a lot of idiotic stuff behind you to litter up his floor, when you haven't been asked, and when, as a matter of fact, no really sane person would wish to have you?” “Hal Hum!” said Santa Claus, stroking his beard nervously and hitch- ing up his belt a little tighter. “ That's the way you feel about it, is it, my laddie?” “My name is Reginald Van Doodle- ton, if you please, sir,” retorted the child, “and I am not aware that I have ever given you reason to believe that I care to be addressed as though I were a caddie.” “O—excuse me, Mr. Van Doodle- ton,” said Santa Claus, laying due em- phasis on the mister, “I—er—I—er—" “You don't do anything else but err,” interrupted the child scornfully, -“ Err- ing is your long suit. You are probably the guy who put the err in error. The line of stuff that you leave behind you after these annual visitations of yours for us young peo- ple of to-day is a pretty clear indication .of that. Why the dickens you should suppose that anybody out of Mattea- wan wants a lot of noisy drums and trumpets, and sickening sweet things like gum-drops, and such foolish bits of nonsense as tin-soldiers, and minia- ture fire-engines, and rotten iron dreadnaughts suitable only for use in the bath-tubs of the hopelessly looney, I can’t see. That’s what I mean by drivelling business, The only excuse for anything nowadays is in its eff- ciency, and I can’t suppose for a mo- ment, if you have anything but fat where most people carry their brains, that you really believe yourself as little as a half-of-one-per-cent. efficient.” Santa Claus scratched his head in bewilderment. “Why—your father used to rejoice in such things, Mr. Van Doodleton,” he said. “O, dad’s an old-fashioned, steel- riveted, copper-fastened, moss-bearing, sixty-horse-power fogey,’ said the boy passionately. “Of all the chronic stand-pat reactionaries that ever came down the pike of life he bears the palm. What's the use of talking about what he liked? Adam liked fig leaves, but that’s no reason why I should for- ever eschew trousers. Alexander wept because there were no more worlds to conquer, but that didn’t wash New York and Chicago off the map. You don’t suppose that because Shem, Ham and Japhet rejoiced to find a minia- ture ark in their socks that all children forever after must rejoice in pink hickory monkeys and Georgia pine kangaroos, do you “Well—” began Santa Claus. “It's very far from well,” inter- rupted the child. “If you think that you have any special permit from Destiny to anchor yourself to the Rock of Ages and continue doing business along the old dead-and-gone lines, re- fusing to progress with the rest of us, you've got another think coming to you That's all—so unless you've taken the trouble to size up modern condi- tions, and have brought me an unex- purgated set of the Works of De Maupassant in place of that sickening drool about Jack the Giant-Killer; a bottle of Maraschino cherries instead of those everlasting Jackson balls and gum-drops; a real runabout that can cover sixty miles an hour without a wheeze instead of a cute little yellow express wagon with red wheels; a few shares of Standard Oil that'll help a fellow keep his end up instead of that everlasting fresh nickel in the little green plush purse; and a half-dozen packs of cigarettes with cork tips in place of those rotten old chocolate cigars you hand out like a Tammany candidate to members of the proleta- riat, you, can gather up your pack of mush and get out the way you came in. I really have neither the time nor the inclination to waste on you and your junk.” Here the lad turned away and began reading a copy of “ The Woman Thou Gavest Me”, by Hall Caine. But Santa Claus did not go. In- stead of disappearing up the chimney, as he had been bade, he removed his hat and coat, and, taking off his fur mittens and standing his pack up in one corner of the room, he strode over to the boy’s bedside, and, seizing the curly-headed youth around his waist, laid him face downward upon his knee and spanked him soundly for three solid minutes. “There, by George!” he puffed, as he put the astonished youngster back in his bed, and crept toward the fire- comichooks. comm