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Dick Spindler’s Family Christmas
by
She “thought it over” sufficiently to go to Sacramento and excuse herself to her nieces. But here she permitted herself to “talk it over,” to the infinite delight of those Baltimore girls, who thought this extravaganza of Spindler’s “so Californian and eccentric!” So that it was not strange that presently the news came back to Rough and Ready, and his old associates learned for the first time that he had never seen his relatives, and that they would be doubly strangers. This did not increase his popularity; neither, I grieve to say, did the intelligence that his relatives were probably poor, and that the Reverend Mr. Saltover had approved of his course, and had likened it to the rich man’s feast, to which the halt and blind were invited. Indeed, the allusion was supposed to add hypocrisy and a bid for popularity to Spindler’s defection, for it was argued that he might have feasted “Wall-eyed Joe” or “Tangle-foot Billy,”–who had once been “chawed” by a bear while prospecting,–if he had been sincere. Howbeit, Spindler’s faith was oblivious to these criticisms, in his joy at Mr. Saltover’s adhesion to his plans and the loan of Mrs. Price as a hostess. In fact, he proposed to her that the invitation should also convey that information in the expression, “by the kind permission of the Rev. Mr. Saltover,” as a guarantee of good faith, but the widow would have none of it. The invitations were duly written and dispatched.
“Suppose,” suggested Spindler, with a sudden lugubrious apprehension,–“suppose they shouldn’t come?”
“Have no fear of that,” said Mrs. Price, with a frank laugh.
“Or ef they was dead,” continued Spindler.
“They couldn’t all be dead,” said the widow cheerfully.
“I’ve written to another cousin by marriage,” said Spindler dubiously, “in case of accident; I didn’t think of him before, because he was rich.”
“And have you ever seen him either, Mr. Spindler?” asked the widow, with a slight mischievousness.
“Lordy! No!” he responded, with unaffected concern.
Only one mistake was made by Mrs. Price in her arrangements for the party. She had noticed what the simple-minded Spindler could never have conceived,–the feeling towards him held by his old associates, and had tactfully suggested that a general invitation should be extended to them in the evening.
“You can have refreshments, you know, too, after the dinner, and games and music.”
“But,” said the unsophisticated host, “won’t the boys think I’m playing it rather low down on them, so to speak, givin’ ’em a kind o’ second table, as ef it was the tailings after a strike?”
“Nonsense,” said Mrs. Price, with decision. “It’s quite fashionable in San Francisco, and just the thing to do.”
To this decision Spindler, in his blind faith in the widow’s management, weakly yielded. An announcement in the “Weekly Banner” that, “On Christmas evening Richard Spindler, Esq., proposed to entertain his friends and fellow citizens at an ‘at home,’ in his own residence,” not only widened the breach between him and the “boys,” but awakened an active resentment that only waited for an outlet. It was understood that they were all coming; but that they should have “some fun out of it” which might not coincide with Spindler’s nor his relatives’ sense of humor seemed a foregone conclusion.
Unfortunately, too, subsequent events lent themselves to this irony of the situation.
He was so obviously sincere in his intent, and, above all, seemed to place such a pathetic reliance on her judgment, that she hesitated to let him know the shock his revelation had given her. And what might his other relations prove to be? Good Lord! Yet, oddly enough, she was so prepossessed by him, and so fascinated by his very Quixotism, that it was perhaps for these complex reasons that she said a little stiffly:–
“One of these cousins, I see, is a lady, and then there is your niece. Do you know anything about them, Mr. Spindler?”
His face grew serious. “No more than I know of the others,” he said apologetically. After a moment’s hesitation he went on: “Now you speak of it, it seems to me I’ve heard that my niece was di-vorced. But,” he added, brightening up, “I’ve heard that she was popular.”