Who ate the pink sweetmeat?

CHERRY PIE

Yet it isn’t such a bad house,” said little Elsie Perch to herself, as she looked upward at the tall tenement-house in which she lived; “to be sure, there’s a good many folks in it – Grandpa ’n Grandma Perch, ’n Grandpa ’n Grandma Finney, ’n uncle John’s folks, ’n us – ’n her house hasn’t got anybody in it but them– but it’s a good enough house. I ain’t going to cry because that little girl that goes to Sunday-school with me has nicer clothes ’n lives in a nicer house. She hasn’t got any cherry-tree, anyway!”

Elsie spoke these last words with an air of great triumph, for, sure enough, right in the back yard of Elsie’s home stood a great, generous cherry-tree; and though as she looked at it now, in the gray solemnity of a December twilight, she had to use considerable imagination to recall the luscious red fruit it had borne last summer, and the glossy richness of the green leaves, under whose shade she had been cool and happy when many of her neighbors were sweltering in the August heats; still Elsie was quite equal to it, especially as to-morrow was Christmas day. For there was to be a splendid Christmas dinner at Grandma Perch’s, on the lower floor, and uncle John and his family, and Elsie’s father and mother, and Grandma and Grandpa Finney were all to be at the dinner. The cherry-pie was always the crowning glory of Christmas dinner with the Perch family. To be sure, it was made of canned cherries; but then, couldn’t Grandma Perch can cherries so they tasted just as nice in winter as in summer? And nobody else knew so well just how much sugar to put in, nor how to make such flaky, delicious pie-crust.

All these things occurred pleasantly to Elsie as she ran up and down the walk in her warm hood, and cloak, and mittens. There was a shade of repining, to be sure, as she thought of the velvet clothes, and various other privileges belonging to the “girl who went to Sunday-school;” but this grew less as she ran, and especially as she looked down to the square below and saw how much more squalid and miserable the houses looked down there, she felt a thankful glow that her home was better, and that her papa and uncle John never came home in a cruel, drunken fury like the fathers of the children down there.

“Pretty good times come Christmas!” said Elsie aloud, in a burst of joy, hopping merrily up and down, and forgetting her discontent. “Why, there’s Millie!” and she ran across the street to a little girl who had just come out of the tall house opposite. Millie looked very forlorn.

“What’s the matter?” asked Elsie.

“Mamma says I can’t have any Christmas present,” said Millie, beginning to sob wretchedly; “she was expecting some work, but it didn’t come, and the rent’s overdue, and – and I can’t have a thing!”

“That’s too bad,” said Elsie; “I’m going to have lots – and we are going to have cherry-pie for dinner.”

“Oh, my!” cried Millie, drying her tears to contemplate Elsie’s future; “cherry-pie! It must be so good! It sounds good.”

“Didn’t you ever have any cherry-pie?”

Millie shook her head.

“Oh, it’s splendid!”

Millie’s eyes shone.

Just then some of the blue, pinched, half-dressed little children, who lived below, came running up the walk. There were two boys whom the children knew to be a certain Sammie and Luke, and two girls whose names were Lizy and Sally. They were shouting and racing, but they stopped to listen to the conversation. The word “Christmas” loosened their tongues at once. “I’m going to our Sunday-school to a Christmas-tree,” said Sammie.

“I can’t go to Sunday-school,” said Lizy, ready to cry, “I hain’t got no clo’es.”

Elsie’s heart reproached her anew for her covetous, ungrateful thoughts of a few moments before. Her self-reproaches grew stronger still when Millie remarked to the little crowd of listeners, as though proud of the acquaintance of so distinguished an individual, that Elsie Perch was going to have cherry-pie for her Christmas dinner.

“Oh, my!” “Is she?” “Ain’t that fine!” cried one and all, with enthusiasm.

“Yes,” rejoined Elsie, her heart swelling with pride, “my grandma always has a cherry-pie for Christmas.”

Silence fell on the little group, and in the midst of this silence, a light footfall was heard pattering along the side street, and there burst into view a little girl – little Maude from the street above – the very little girl of whom Elsie had been envious. She wore a broad gray hat, with a lovely Titian red feather, and a Titian red velvet Mother Hubbard cloak, and velvet leggings to match, and carried a lovely muff, while by a silken cord she led a dear little white dog, in a buff-and-silver blanket.

“Oh,” cried this beautiful little creature, bounding toward Elsie, “there you are! I saw you come around here after Sunday-school, and I’ve been hunting for you. See my little new dog! It’s a Christmas present, only it came yesterday. Is this where you live?” She looked shrinkingly up and down the narrow street, and at the squalid buildings in the distance. “And are these your brothers and sisters?”

Elsie laughed, and said no.

“What do you think?” began Lizy seriously, her large, wistful eyes, and chalk-white face, lending a strange pathos to her funny little speech, “this girl here,” and she pointed to Elsie, “is going to have cherry-pie.”

“Is she?” said Maude; “that is nice. I like cherry-pie, but we don’t have any in winter.”

“We do,” said Elsie proudly. “My grandma puts up lots of cans of cherries, when our cherry-tree bears, and Christmas-time we have cherry-pie, and sometimes, when we have company, we have cherry-sauce for tea.”

“I’d like some cherry-pie,” said Maude imperiously. “Little girl, give us some of your cherry-pie?”

The hungry group of ragged boys and girls gathered about with Maude. She was beginning some sort of an explanation, that the cherry-pie was her grandma’s, and not hers, when a bell rang in the distance, and Maude darted away.

“That’s for me,” she cried, hastening away, and pulling the buff-and-silver-coated doggie after her. “Good-by, little girl! I wish I could have some of that cherry-pie.”

She tripped daintily away down the side street, and the children watched her until she was out of sight. “I ’spose,” said Luke, with a sigh, “I ’spose she has dinner every day.”

“I have dinner every day,” cried Elsie.

“Do you?” said Lizy, devouring this favored child of fortune with her great, wistful eyes. “I don’t. Oh! I’d like some of that cherry-pie.”

Just then Elsie saw her father coming up the street and ran to meet him, while the other children started for their homes in the square below.

The next morning there was so much excitement that Elsie never thought of the poor children on the next square, nor of Millie, nor of Maude, until the Christmas dinner was nearly over and the cherry-pie came on.

“Oh!” she cried, “you don’t know, grandma, how nice everybody thinks it is that we can have cherry-pie.”

“Do they?” said grandma kindly. “Well, I do hope the pie’s turned out well.”

Elsie noticed that some of the pie was left after all had been served. A bright idea darted into her head, and she was out of the room in a trice. On went cloak and hood, and she dashed around the corner to see if she could find Maude. Yes, there she was, playing with her blanketed doggie on the broad sidewalk.

“Come!” cried Elsie, catching hold of Maude’s hand. “Come quick! There’s lots of cherry-pie! Come and have some!”

As they neared Millie’s house they met that little girl on the walk, and she was easily persuaded to join the party.

“Now,” said Elsie, running on in advance, “let’s get Sammie and Lizy, and those other ones.”

They flew down the street, and soon found the objects of their search. The watchword, “cherry-pie,” was sufficient, and in the twinkling of an eye, they were at Grandma Perch’s door. Then, for the first time, Elsie felt a little misgiving. Perhaps there wasn’t pie enough to go round. And what would grandma say?

But she marched bravely in, her eager little crowd of companions at her heels.

“See here, grandma,” she said, “here are a lot of children who want some cherry-pie.”

“Dear heart!” exclaimed grandma, in dismay, looking down at the motley group with lifted hands. “Why, Elsie! there isn’t pie enough for more’n three little pieces, but, bless ’em!” for the look on some of those pinched, hungry faces went to grandma’s heart, in the abundance and mirth of her own Christmas day, “I’ll have a cherry-pie made for ’em in less’n no time. There’s pie-crust in my pan, and the oven is hot; just go out and play, children, and I’ll call you in presently.”

And “presently” they were called in to behold a mammoth cherry-pie, baked in a tin pan, and they had just as much as was good for them, even to Maude’s doggie. Maude left first, for she wasn’t hungry, and, besides, she knew that her mamma would worry about her long absence; but the little starved boys and girls from “the square below,” didn’t go for a long time. To tell the truth, grandma didn’t stop at giving them cherry-pie. They had some turkey, and some mashed potato, and turnip, and some hot coffee, besides.

“Tain’t often I can give,” said grandma afterward. “But we’ve been prospered, and I can’t bear to see anybody hungry on Christmas day.”

After they had all gone, Elsie sat with her heart full of quiet happiness, rocking in her little rocking-chair. She was meditating vaguely on the envy she had felt toward Maude, and her general feeling of discontent. At last she spoke to grandma, who happened to be sitting beside her.

“Most everybody has things some other folks don’t have,” she remarked, rather vaguely.

Grandma understood her.

“Dear heart!” she cried again, for that was her pet name for Elsie. “That’s right! There’s mercies for everybody, if they’d only reckon ’em up – and Christmas day’s a first-rate time to remember it!”

BERTIE’S RIDE

Here’s a nice state of things! We have run short of candles for the Tree, and of course the shops will be shut to-morrow, and the day after. What is to be done? Almost anything else might have been managed in some way, but a Christmas Tree in semi-darkness – can anything more dismal be imagined?” And Alice Chetwynd’s usually bright face looks nearly as gloomy as the picture she has called up.