Mrs. Budlong's Chrismas Presents eBook

Rupert Hughes
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 51 pages of information about Mrs. Budlong's Chrismas Presents.

Mrs. Budlong's Chrismas Presents eBook

Rupert Hughes
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 51 pages of information about Mrs. Budlong's Chrismas Presents.

“Somebody ought to write a history of Mrs. Budlong’s Christmas presents.  It would tell the complete story of all the darned fool fads that American women have been up to for twenty years.”

But foolish soever, Mrs. Budlong was fair.  A keen sense of sportsmanship led her to give full notice to such people as she planned to honor with her gifts.  She knew how embarrassing it is to receive presents from one to whom no present has been sent, and she made it a point of honor somehow to forewarn her prospective beneficiaries betimes.  Her favorite method was the classic device of pretending to let slip a secret.  For instance: 

“Yesterday morning, my dear, I had the Strangest exPerience.  It was just ten o’clock.  I remember the hour so exactly because for the last few days I have made it a rule to begin work on your Christmas present just at ten—­Oh, but I didn’t mean to tell you.  It was to be a surprise.  No, don’t ask me, I won’t give you an inkling, but I really think it will please you.  It’s something you’ve been needing for Such a long time.”

And she left the victim to writhe from then on to Christmas, trying alternately to imagine what gift was impending and what would be an appropriate counter-gift.

III

MISTRESS OF THE REVELS

In more ways than one Mrs. Budlong kept Carthage on the writhe.  Christmas was merely the climax of a ceaseless activity.  All the year round she was at work like a yeast alert in a soggy dough.

She was forever getting up things.  She was one of those terrible women who return calls on time or a little ahead.  That made it necessary for you to return hers earlier.  If you didn’t, she called you up on the telephone and asked you why you hadn’t.  You had to promise to come over at once or she’d talk to you till your ear was welded to the telephone.  Then if you broke your promise she called you up about that.  She got in from fifty-two to a hundred and four calls a year, where one or two would have amply sufficed for all she had to say.

It was due to her that Carthage had such a lively social existence—­for its size.  Once, when she fell ill, the people felt suddenly as passengers feel when a street car is suddenly braked back on its haunches.  All Carthage found itself wavering and poised on tiptoe and clinging to straps; and then it sogged back on its heels and waited till the car should resume progress.  Mrs. Budlong was the town’s motorman—­or “motorneer,” as they say in Carthage.

Before she was out of bed, she had invitations abroad for a convalescent tea, and everybody said, “Here we go again!”

If strangers visited Carthage, Mrs. Budlong counted them her clients the moment they arrived.  Of course, the merely commercial visitors she left to the hackmen at the station, but friends or relatives of prominent people could not escape Mrs. Budlong’s well-meant attentions.  It was sometimes embarrassing when relatives appeared—­for everybody has Concealed Relatives that he is perfectly willing to leave in concealment.

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Project Gutenberg
Mrs. Budlong's Chrismas Presents from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.