Chapter IX: New Year’s Calls

It was New Year’s Eve, and Mr. Merrick sat with Lucy on his knee, and his other children around him, in Marcy’s room. The custom of Marcy’s reading the paper to him every evening had grown into a long chat with all the children after the reading. From being exclusively occupied with thoughts of business in his home, Mr. Merrick had ceased to be exclusively occupied with it even in business hours. His associates on Wall Street were amazed to see him sometimes smiling to himself, and then hear him say: “That eldest boy of mine’s a funny rascal!” Or, “My little niece said a pretty good thing the other day.” Or, “Well, sir, what do you suppose that youngest girl of mine did yesterday?” and follow up these introductory remarks with an anecdote of the children. He was surprised himself to discover how he looked forward to this hour after dinner with the little band, and how the memory of it followed it throughout the succeeding day.

This New Year’s Eve Mr. Merrick was telling the children of the custom of making calls on New Year’s Day, which had been universal in his youth, and had fallen into disuse.

“Why, I am not old,” he began, but Hugh immediately interrupted him:

“Not old! Well!” he cried, but stopped himself.

“What’s this? Do you think I am old?” asked Mr. Merrick, looking down at the boy curled up on the rug, pulling Kris Kringle’s ears. “I am not quite forty-five.”

“Forty-five isn’t old,” said Nellie, with an air of decision. “Fifty is old though.”

“Five years more of grace,” said Mr. Merrick, laughing. “Nothing like having the line clearly defined; some people find it harder to settle. I’ll tell you a secret about old age, children. It is always the next turn beyond where you have gone, and though you can plainly see others reach it, you never quite get there yourself.”

“Poor papa; you don’t like to grow old, then,” said Marcy thoughtfully. “I suppose it’s like being crippled, and thinking you can never run around again, isn’t it?”

Mr. Merrick bent his head a moment over Lucy’s curls without answering; when he spoke, it was of something else, and his voice was husky.

“It was a pretty custom going to call on one’s friends to wish them health and happiness for a new year, but it grew into a caricature and abuse, and it was better then to stop it. Still I sometimes think I should like to see the old custom again in the old way.”

“Come, Miss Lucy, bed-time,” said Norah, appearing in the doorway, and Lucy slipped down, kissed every one good-night, and Marcy three times, and was gone.

New Year’s Day was damp and disagreeable. Grace had a cold, and required Norah’s care; Mr. and Mrs. Merrick were at church, and Nellie and Inez were in Marcy’s room, when Norah came down looking frightened.

“Dear Miss Inez and Miss Nellie,” she said, in great distress, “please come and help me look for Lucy. Her bonnet and cloak are gone, and she certainly is nowhere in the house; she must have slipped out unawares.”

The girls started up at this alarming summons, leaving Marcy in an agony of helpless excitement. The house was ransacked again in vain, and there was no mistake that she had gone out alone in the streets of the great city.

“She’ll be lost; she’ll be run over; she’ll be killed!” wailed Inez, falling on her knees, and burying her face in the coverlid of Marcy’s bed.

Marcy shook with speechless terror, and Nellie said:

“Stop, Inez, you’ll hurt Marcy. Let’s all say our beads till Uncle Dick and Aunt Clara come. Julia has gone to the church to find them.”

Meanwhile the cause of this alarm had gone serenely down the street to the avenue. She had put on her cloak and bonnet unaided, but rubbers and leggings were beyond her memory, and she sallied forth with no thought of her thin shoes and unprotected knees. Lucy had listened with much more attention than any one knew to her father’s stories of old-fashioned New Year’s calling, and finding herself left quite alone that morning felt that she had a golden opportunity to revive the pleasing custom. She had not forgotten to take the new muff, which, as she said, “Santa Closet” had brought her, and in its depths lay hidden her mother’s card-case with which she had thoughtfully provided herself. No one interfered with the small midget as she went her way past the high brown-stone houses of her street, and turned into Fifth Avenue, where she selected a dignified mansion, and going up the steps, put her finger on the electric bell button, and kept it there till her summons was answered.

The maid who came to the door was a newly arrived Swede, who could not speak a word of English. She showed the small caller into the parlor, received the card on her tray, and disappeared without a word.

Mrs. Francis, whom Lucy had selected for this first call, was very busy getting ready for a journey to Washington, when the card was brought her. She scanned it impatiently, read “Mrs. Richard Merrick” wonderingly, and gave a sigh of annoyance.

“I don’t know any Mrs. Richard Merrick,” she exclaimed. “What can have brought any one on such a day as New Year’s? I suppose I should better see her.”

She changed her dress very quickly, looked hastily at her slightly disordered hair, hoping that she should find the parlor shades, drawn, and went down indisposed to be gracious to her untimely visitor.

As she entered the room she could scarcely believe her eyes. There sat “Mrs. Merrick” on a stiff Louis XV. chair, upon which she had climbed with difficulty, her feet sticking straight out before her, and her eyes shining out very bright from a brown beaver-trimmed bonnet.

“Dear me!” exclaimed Mrs. Francis, and stopped short in amazement.

“Good-morning. I’m making you a New Year’s call,” explained Lucy, slipping down from her perch in what might be called recklessness when one considers what a piece of work it was to get up.

“Where did you come from, you provoking little midget?” cried Mrs. Francis, laughing, yet irritated as she thought of her change of toilette and the unfinished packing waiting her supervision.

“I’m _not_ a little midget,” cried Lucy indignantly. “I’m Mrs. Mehwick, and I don’t fink you’re very espectable.” She meant respectful, but it did not much matter.

“I beg your pardon, Mrs. Merrick,” said Mrs. Francis humbly. “Now I see you all, but when I came in it was so dark, I really thought you were a little girl.”

“Never mind,” said Lucy, mollified at once. “I’m ’fwaid I’ve got to go wight away quick, ’cause I’m going to make more’n a fousand calls.”

“Oh, then, good-by,” said her hostess, opening the heavy front door for her. “I hope you’ll come again for a longer call.”

“Yes, I will,” said Lucy cheerfully. “Good-by.”

She had made half the long journey down the high steps, one step at a time, when she remembered something.

“I wis you a happy New Year,” she said, retracing some of the hard road, then she was gone.

“I wonder if I ought not send a messenger to this address,” said Mrs. Francis, looking at the card. “I am sure the funny tot has run away. However, it is too late now.”

Lucy went on down the avenue. She passed many houses which for some reason did not attract her, and her feet were getting very wet, and she began to feel tired and thoroughly cold. At last she selected a house where children’s faces appeared at the window, and tried to ring the bell. But it was not an electric one, and her small arms could not manage to pull it. She tapped on the glass for a long time, till at last some one heard her, and a merry-faced girl came to the door. She took the card from Lucy, read it, stared at her a moment, and then burst out laughing.

“Come in, Mrs. Merrick, ma’am. Sure it’s delighted Mrs. Van Alen will be to see ye.”

This reception cheered Lucy’s soul, and she followed readily when the maid bade her come up to the sitting-room. Here a motherly-looking woman came to greet her, and shook the little hand extended to her.

“I am very glad to meet Mrs. Merrick,” she said.

But Lucy’s eyes were riveted on a wonderful doll house in the corner, before which a little girl and boy were seated staring at her.

“Well, I was Mrs. Mehwick out making New Year’s calls, but I guess I’ll be Lulie here, if you’ll let me see that pessely beautiful house,” she said.

“Certainly I will if you will do something for me first,” said Mrs. Van Alen, “and that is let me take off your wet shoes and stockings, and rub your little feet nice and warm, and then give you some warm milk to drink, for you are as cold as a little icicle.”

“Well, all wight,” said Lucy graciously. “I did forgot my wubbers and leggings.”

“I don’t believe nurse put your things on for you, did she?” asked Mrs. Van Alen, taking Lucy on her knee, and cuddling her feet in her warm hand as she held them close to the grate fire.

“Nobody didn’t put ’em on,” said Lucy, “nobody but just me. Gwacie’s got sore froat, and Nonie’s taking care of her, and mamma’s out, and Inez and Nellie is in Marcy’s woom, and nobody, not nobody saw me. Won’t they be s’prised fen they know I’s out?”

“I think it is only too certain,” said Mrs. Van Alen. “Hurry, Katie; the address is there.” And she gave Katie, who had been waiting, the card that Lucy had sent up to her.

“Now may I see the baby house?” asked Lucy when Mrs. Van Alen had put on a pair of her children’s stockings and slippers, and set her down on the hearth, and she had finished the last drop of her warm milk.

“Yes, indeed. This is Daisy Van Alen, and Harry Van Alen, and, children, this is little Lulie Merrick come to see you.”

After a few moments of silent staring the three burst into chatter over the charms of the cooking-stove in the doll-house kitchen, and the little Van Alens explained it had only just come, being a gift from Santa Claus delayed in the express.

While Lucy’s adventures had come to such a happy end, the agony at her home was increasing every moment. The description of the lost child had been telegraphed to every police station and hospital in the city, but no result had followed so far. Mrs. Merrick made up her mind that Lucy was kidnapped, and walked up and down the room, moaning and wringing her hands, refusing to be comforted. Perhaps it was hardest of all for Marcy, denied the relief of motion, and doomed to lie perfectly still through the two long hours of uncertainty, thinking of the dear little sister whose pretty curly head she might never see again tipped back against the foot-board of her bed, as she sat in her favorite position telling her stories. And Mr. Merrick hurried along in fruitless search from street to street, fearing that Lucy had been run over, and that if not killed outright, the youngest, like the eldest of his children, might be crippled.

Into all this agony came hurrying the pleasant, rosy face of Mrs. Van Alen’s Katie, saying breathlessly:

“I came to tell ye all your little girl was safe at our house, where she come and knocked at the front-door glass, being too small entirely to ring the bell, and sint up this card, saying she do be making New Year’s calls. And Mrs. Van Alen took off her wet shoes and stockings, and made her drink warm milk, for she was that wet and muddy from the sloppy streets, and she’ll be playing with our children till you send for her.”

Norah put her arms around Katie and hugged her, and all the Merricks would have liked to have followed her example.

When Norah, who went to fetch Lucy home, arrived, she found that young lady very ill-disposed to leave, being quite happy with the wonderful baby house, and having so much attention paid to her.

On her return she was hugged nearly breathless by the entire family, who were themselves so breathless from laughing and sobbing that they could not scold her.

But poor little Lucy paid for her adventures and forgotten rubbers by a sharp attack of croup that night, when for three hours her mother and Norah feared that they had only found her to lose her again forever.

“I don’t believe I’ll make more New Year’s calls, Nonie,” croaked the poor child hoarsely in the morning. “They’re nice, but they make me choke too badily. You tell papa I’m glad there’s no more New Year’s calls, and not to be sorry ’bout they’re being all stopped making them.”