So Hartman, where he was heading for was Doc Merritt. And he run over to his office, and didn’t find him there, and then he helloed over to the boardinghouse where the Doc lived at, and didn’t find him there. And then he got kind of wild, and went running all over town, in stores and everywhere, trying to find the Doc. And not nobody could tell him where the Doc was, on account this fanning bee had been kept pretty dark, and everybody was wondering what was up.
So in about a hour, here he come running back, and he didn’t have no Doc and he didn’t have nothing. And when he went upstairs he almost fainted. And then he begun blubbering and crying and carrying on like he was crazy, and the more the Doc tried to calm him down the worse he went on. Because it was all over, and what he seen was the Doc, wrapping up the new baby boy in a little piece of woolen cloth. But what the Doc had forgot was, on account he had been working so hard, that he still had on the Santa Claus suit, with the whiskers still sticking to his chin, and for all Hartman could see it was Santa Claus hisself that had brung him his child and made everything all right.
“It is a Santa Claus,” he kept saying over and over, even when he got it straight what happened. “Oh, God, after the way I ran and prayed, and then come back and find—” And then he would just cry.
So them eggs that was going to fan him, they was trying to tell theirself it was all a joke by that time, and they showed up with a lot of Christmas stuff, and a drum for the kid. And it was all over town in an hour about how Hartman has changed his mind about Santa Claus, and maybe ain’t so sure how little ones gets in the world no more, so Christmas Day the trustees held a special meeting and took him back. So after that he done fine. So it looks like to me Santa Claus pulled a fast one on him.
DECEMBER 22, 1929
Gold Letters Hand Painted
When I was about fifteen years old, I and all the other young men about town used to resort to various schemes to give the impression that we had reached man’s estate. Some of us acquired girls, some took jobs, some played poker, and some just talked. But Bob Plummer, son of one of the Metho-preachers in town, made the mistake of hatching a scheme so grand that it challenged the gods; and that, as we all know, is merely storing up dynamite against the lightning bolt. Bob’s scheme was an individual shaving mug, no less. He went away to Wilmington, Delaware, with his father one spring, to attend the annual conference, and when he came back he had it in his suitcase. He didn’t show it around, of course, and boast about it. That would have been a gross strategic blunder. He merely strolled around to Johnny Vandergrift’s barber shop in the most casual manner, left it there, and told Johnny that from now on he would come on Saturday nights to be shaved.
Well, that, as you may understand, was a bombshell; it made girls, jobs, poker games, white pants, and all such things seem childish nonsense by comparison. By twos and threes that afternoon we all had a look at it, coming to jeer, remaining to be struck dumb with awe. There it stood in plain view, among the hundreds of cups belonging to Johnny’s regular customers, and on its pearly face, in beautiful gold letters, was his own individual name, thus:
ROB’T P. PLUMMER, JR.
And for a whole week we were so groggy that our faculties were practically paralyzed. But then duty called: we had to organize some sort of counteroffensive. And presently we had one that we thought very neat. It was called the Foggy Club, and it was formed for the sole purpose of affording the members an opportunity to foregather occasionally for the sociable smoking of cigarettes. And the beauty of it was that Bob, since his father was a minister, could not very well join.
The next thing, of course, was to select a propitious moment for inviting him to join, and we decided that none could be better than when he was reclining in Johnny Vandergrift’s best chair, having himself shaved out of his precious blue mug. The next Saturday night accordingly, having made sure that the operation had actually started, we all trooped into the shop.
Red Lucas led off. He yawned awhile, and then put down his magazine and looked over at Johnny.
“Who’s that you got in the chair?” he asked, in a puzzled sort of way.
For answer, Johnny held up the mug.
“Oh,” said Red. “Bob Plummer. Damn, I didn’t know that was Bob Plummer. Hello, Bob. How you was?”
“Hello,” said Bob. “I’m all right.”
“Say, that reminds me,” Red went on. “We haven’t got your ante yet for the Foggy Club. You’ll let me have it in the next couple of days, won’t you?”
“Yeah, I heard about the Foggy Club,” said Bob. “If you don’t mind though, I think I won’t join.”
“What, not join?” said Red. “Why, we were counting on you.”
“No, thanks, I’d rather not.”
“Well, gee, I sure am sorry. Old man won’t let you smoke, hey?”
“No, that’s not it. He says I can smoke, if I want to. But you know how it is. He’s a minister, and it would make trouble, so I just don’t do it. Not regular, anyway.”
Well, there we were, licked before we started. Somebody said something about Mamma’s boy, but just then Johnny dipped a brushful of lather out of the mug, and it wilted away to a few weak snickers. The game was over and we hadn’t scored a point.
“No,” said Bob, after he had got up out of the chair, and carefully inspected his face, “it’s not so easy, being a minister’s son. There’s a lot of things you can’t do.”
He leaned close for a look at his chin. We had an uneasy feeling that more was coming, and that we wouldn’t enjoy it a bit. And in a moment, we saw what it was. He had given Johnny a quarter, had received fifteen cents, and was fingering his change. He was going to tip Johnny Vandergrift!
The room reeled around us. Johnny Vandergrift, who had brought the first automobile to town! Johnny Vandergrift, who had once seen an airplane! Johnny Vandergrift, who wore a brown derby hat on Sunday!..
“Here you are, John,” said Bob. “That’ll pay for the wear on the razor.”
“Keep it,” said Johnny. “There’s no wear on the razor, because I’ve shaved you three times now and haven’t clinked a whisker yet.”
There was more, but on the whole I prefer to draw the veil at this point.
MARCH 2, 1930
It Breathed
In the war I put in some time on observation post, and it was in top of the tallest tree in France, and you climbed up by a ladder, and they had a little iron box up there what look like a coffin, and you could go in there when the shells was falling, and they generally was. And how we done was to have two hours in that box and six hours off. Only a guy name of Foley got sick, and that give us two hours on and four off, on account we only had three men instead of four. And that there wasn’t so good, because even doing two and six we didn’t never get no good sleep, and doing two and four we didn’t hardly get no sleep at all.
So it went on like that for two days. And then Katz, he called up headquarters on the telephone again to ask them to come get Foley, and they put up a argument or something, and he kind of got a little wild.
“So you ain’t got no car you can spare, hey?” he hollers. “Well, you better get one, and get it quick. Because this guy is sick. He’s got the flu or something and if you think three men can run this post and take care of him too you made a mistake and you can tell the Captain I said so.”
So Foley, he was laying right there in the bunk in the little shack we had under the tree, and of course, he heared everything that Katz was saying. So after he hung up, Katz begun to blubber, on account he didn’t want Foley to think we minded bringing him water, and bathing his head, and all like of that, and he asked Foley not to pay no attention to what he said. So Foley, he wasn’t paying no attention to nothing, and all he done was nod his head a little bit and wave his hand like he didn’t want nobody to bother him.