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Mademoiselle De Doucine’s New Year’s Present
by
After haranguing in this sort, he put back his book in his pocket and marched off with angry strides, followed at a distance by the astonished chimney-sweeps and scullions.
The good M. Chanterelle was left sitting alone on his post with the Princess of Savoy, and thinking how he was risking the eternal pains of hell fire for giving a doll to Mademoiselle de Doucine, his niece, he fell to pondering the unfathomable mysteries of Religion.
His legs, which had been tottery for several months, refused to carry him, and he felt as unhappy as ever a well-meaning man possibly can in this world.
He had been sitting stranded in this distressful mood on his post for some minutes when a Capuchin friar stepped up and addressed him:
“Sir, will you not give New Year’s presents to the Little Brethren who are poor, for the love of God?”
“Why! what! good Father,” M. Chan-terelle burst out, “you are a man of religion, and you ask me for New Year’s gifts?”
“Sir,” replied the Capuchin, “the good St. Francis bade his sons make merry with all simplicity. Give the Capuchins wherewith to make a good meal this day, that they may endure with cheerfulness the abstinence and fasting they must observe all the rest of the year,–barring, of course, Sundays and Feast Days.”
M. Chanterelle gazed at the holy man with wonder:
“Are you not afraid, Father, that this custom of New Year’s gifts is baneful to the soul?”
“No, I am not afraid.”
“The custom comes to us from the Pagans.”
“The Pagans sometimes followed good customs. God was pleased to suffer some faint rays of his light to pierce the darkness of the Gentiles. Sir, if you refuse to give us presents, never refuse a boon to our poor little ones. We have a home for foundlings. With this poor crown I shall buy each child a little paper windmill and a cake. They will owe you the only pleasure perhaps of all their life; for they are not fated to have much joy in the world. Their laughter will go up to heaven; when children laugh, they praise the Lord.”
M. Chanterelle laid his well-filled purse in the poor friar’s palm and got him down from his post, saying over softly to himself the word he had just heard:
“When children laugh, they praise the Lord.”
Then his soul was comforted and he marched off with a firmer step to carry the Princess of Savoy to Mademoiselle de Doucine, his niece.