Halcyon Days

By J E Murray

[According to the holiday calendar, December 14 is when we celebrate Halcyon Days]

“Merry Christmas, Kid.” Hannibal Heyes gives his partner a rueful grin as he holds out a small, flat package. “Sorry I don’t have much to give you this year.”

His partner, Jedidiah “Kid” Curry, sets down his half-eaten plate of refried beans. “Aw, Heyes, you shouldn’t have.” He digs around in his saddlebag. “Here’s yours from me.”

The two men, dirty and unshaven, unwrap their respective Christmas gifts. Each of them looks at the near-identical wooden carvings for a moment, then they both burst out laughing.

“I reckon we do need ‘em something fierce,” says Heyes at last, wiping his eyes. He runs the wooden comb through his dark hair, wincing as he hits a few snarls.

The Kid’s expression turns pensive. “You remember that one year in Valparaiso, Heyes? We didn’t have nothing then, neither.”

Heyes grimaces. “There were a lot of years we didn’t have anything, Kid. I hated that place.”

“The little ones was so happy that year,” the Kid continues, ignoring his partner’s complaints.

Heyes continues to comb his hair, which needs a cut badly. He mutters underneath his breath. “Maybe I don’t want to remember, you ever think of that?”

But the Kid is right: he remembers every minute of that Christmas, the first one he and Jed had spent at the Home. Heyes stares into the distance, his mind drifting back….

**

A small boy, wiry and dark, sat beneath the sheltering boughs of a cedar tree, his knees pulled up to his chin. “Whadda you mean there’s no money for Christmas dinner?”

His taller companion crossed his arms over his own knees and frowned. “That’s what I heard old Mrs. Criley say. Said there weren’t no need for such free…friv…”

“Frivolities?”

“Yeah. You’re smart, Heyes. You can figure out a way for us to have a Christmas dinner.”

Heyes stared at his friend, eyes wide. “What do you think, I can pull money out of my backside? How am I going to get us a decent dinner?”

“You’ll think of something. You always do.” The taller boy nodded, his faith in his friend absolute. “And in the meantime, I’ll get a job.”

“You’ll what?”

“Get a job. Mrs. Criley already said she was gonna make the older kids go to work.”

Heyes frowned. “She’ll just take your paycheck if she finds out, Kid. You can’t tell her.”

The Kid nodded his understanding. “If she says anything, I’ll say we’re out playing cowboy, like we was still little kids.”

Heyes frowned again. The two boys hadn’t qualified as little kids since each of them had lost their parents. “But nobody will hire me. I still look like a little ‘un, blast it. What can I do?”

They sat beneath the old tree for a few minutes, thinking hard. Suddenly, the Kid snapped his fingers. “You always did have a silver tongue, Heyes. You oughta go ‘round to all the businesses in town and tell ‘em about what a rotten Christmas us orphans will be having.”

Heyes gave his friend a blank look. “What good will that do? They don’t care about us.”

The Kid shook his head sadly. “And you’re supposed to be the brains of this outfit. You gotta make them care. Ain’t nobody else could do it. You and that silver tongue.”

Heyes frowned, then a thoughtful expression crossed his face. “Say, maybe I could do something. Just let me scheme a bit.”

“I’ll leave that to you,” said the Kid, shoving to his feet and dusting the cedar needles from his pants. “I’m off to get me a job.”

This was easier said than done. The local businessmen had developed a wariness of the town’s orphans, especially of allowing them access to their merchandise. It was nearly two days before the Kid leaned over the dinner table to whisper to his friend, “Ten o’clock.”

At the appointed hour, the two boys could be found in a small cupboard beneath the back stairs of the orphanage. The Kid, having hit his growth spurt already, was cramped, his head brushing the bottoms of the stairs. Heyes sat cross-legged at the small end of the triangular space. He rested his elbows on his knees.

“You got news?” he asked with a prodigious yawn.

The Kid smiled and straightened as far as the cramped space permitted. “You’re looking at the new printer’s devil for the Valparaiso Examiner.”

“Say what?”

“Printer’s devil. It’s what they call a kid working at the newspaper printer’s office.”

“Why?”

The Kid’s face fell. “Coz it was the only place that’d hire me.”

“No, why are you a devil?”

The Kid shrugged. “I guess coz of the ink all over you.”

“Oh. Well, good job, then. I think I got an angle on my end, too.”

“Really? What is it?”

Heyes shook his head. “Oh, no. You know I don’t like to explain a job ahead of time”

The Kid punched his friend in the shoulder. As Heyes rubbed the sting out of his arm, the Kid folded himself up preparatory to crawling out the cupboard doorway. “Best get back to bed so Old Criley doesn’t suspect.

The next morning saw a freshly bathed Heyes, dressed in what passed for his Sunday best, standing in front of an unimpressed secretary in the office of the richest man in town.

“Five minutes,” Heyes said, as though this were an everyday occurrence for him, talking to bigwigs. “If Mr. Sweeney doesn’t agree, you can throw me out.”

“I can throw you out now,” the elderly woman said, her mouth pinched as though she’d just smelled something foul.

“You could, ma’am, and I couldn’t blame you. But the truth of the matter is, what I have to say to Mr. Sweeney will be to his advantage, especially regarding Mr. Morgan.” Heyes clapped a hand to his mouth. “Oh dear, forget I said that. I was supposed to say that only to Mr. Sweeney.”

“Mr. Morgan?” The secretary’s face, already drawn in disapproval, became even more stern, if such a thing were possible. “What does Everett Morgan have to do with Mr. Sweeney?”

“That is what I must discuss with the man himself,” said Heyes with a small bow. “It’s a matter of some urgency concerning the Home.”

Heyes forced himself to stand still as the secretary raked him with a gaze that should have given him frostbite. He gave her his most beguiling smile. She gave him a disdainful sniff but rose and crossed to her employer’s door. Heyes couldn’t hear what she said when she poked her head into the office, but when she turned, she said, “Five minutes exactly.”

“Thank you, ma’am.” Heyes ducked through the door she held open. He found himself facing a desk that would have made even a full-grown Heyes feel small.

“Well, boy, what is it?” Mr. Sweeney was a rotund man, balding and trying to hide it with thick mutton-chop whiskers. Unlike the stereotypical jolly fat man, however, Sweeney had a face etched with frown lines. Heyes imagined he spent a lot of time evicting renters or whatever it was a bigwig actually did.

Heyes locked his gaze on Sweeney’s cold blue eyes. After all, it’s a well-known fact that a liar cannot meet your gaze straight on. Heyes was counting on the little-known fact that the first fact was a total falsehood.

“Good morning, sir. I represent the Valparaiso Home for Wayward Youth.”

Sweeney harrumphed and pulled out his pocket watch. Heyes upped the charm on his smile.

“I’m actually here,” he said, “because you were recommended by Mr. Everett Morgan. I’m certain you will wish to match his generous--”

“Generous? Morgan?”

Heyes had him now. His plan rested on the fact that each of the town’s bigwigs despised every one of the others, to the point that even saying their counterparts’ names aloud caused their lips to curl, as Sweeney was now demonstrating. Heyes dropped his gaze and dug a toe into the carpet as though embarrassed. All he lacked was the blush, and he was certain that, with a little practice, he could master that trick by the time he escaped Mrs. Criley’s Home.

“Well,” Heyes said to Sweeney, “to be honest, Mr. Morgan gave me fifty cents and tossed me out of his office.”

Sweeney harrumphed again. “I can’t believe he gave you anything. And why shouldn’t I do the same, boy?”

Heyes raised his head and met Sweeney’s gaze once more. “The orphans won’t even have Christmas dinner without a miracle, sir. Wouldn’t it be a fine story for the Examiner—'Town Leaders Fund Orphan’s Christmas?’”

“Hmm.” Sweeney tugged at his right-hand mutton chop. “I suppose I could donate a little something….”

Here was where the silver tongue must come into play. “A little something” wouldn’t put meat on those kids’ plates come December 25^th.

“Whatever you feel is fair, sir,” he said. “Of course, I feel I should confess Mr. Kimball has promised to provide a chicken."

"Chicken?” Sweeney leaned forward to slap a hand on his desktop. “Kimbell wouldn’t know Christmas dinner if he fell face first into it. You can’t give children a measly chicken for Christmas.”

Heyes said nothing. Mr. Sweeney yanked open a desk drawer. Heyes held his breath as the man pulled out a fat wad of paper bills. Was this plan actually going to work?

Sweeney peeled off more cash than Heyes had even imagined and rose, leaning across the desk.

“Well? Don’t just stand there, boy, go buy a turkey with all the trimmings. And that article better say, ‘Town Leader Rupert Sweeney Funds Orphan’s Christmas.’”

Heyes barely kept from snatching the bills from the pudgy hand. He tucked them carefully into the inner pocket of his jacket as though he did this sort of thing every day. “Mr. Rupert Sweeney,” he repeated. “Town Leader … or Town Benefactor?”

As he turned to make his escape, Sweeney was staring into the distance, running a hand over his chin. “Benefactor…!”

Before the day was out, Heyes had enough cash to buy the sort of dinner every child in town dreamed of. Now, the trick that would ensure the orphans actually received that dinner.

“A Christmas party?” Mr. Hanrahan, the editor of the Examiner, jotted down the details Heyes had invented on his way to the newspaper offices. “With the mayor and town benefactors in attendance. What a treat for you orphans.”

“And you’ll write an article about each of them?” Heyes double-checked. When the editor confirmed, Heyes shot a wink at his best friend, who was currently sweeping the printing room floor. Then, he sauntered to the butcher’s to arrange the delivery of the turkey, to the baker’s for rolls and stuffing, and to the mercantile for the rest of the feast.

Of course, Mrs. Criley was less than pleased when she read the newspaper announcement of the party she was supposed to host. “A dinner party—in two days’ time?”

Heyes, who “just happened” to be passing the kitchen as the paper was delivered, found himself jerked inside the room by his collar.

“You brats better have this house spotless by tomorrow night,” Mrs. Criley ordered, giving him a shake. “And haul those old Christmas decorations down from the attic. Can’t have the mayor think we don’t have no holiday spirit.”

Heyes reined in his grin until he’d trotted into the living room. This was turning into a perfect plan. Old Criley would serve the turkey dinner because she couldn’t very well serve beans and gruel in front of the town’s bigwigs. And now for the Kid’s contribution. Heyes met his friend outside the newspaper office after his shift.

“You ready to spend your hard-earned paycheck?” he asked. They made their way to the mercantile, where they loaded a sack with inexpensive gifts for the younger children. There was only one further item on their list, and the pursuit of this took them to the stable.

“Are you kids crazy?” “Bones” Beaumont stopped sweeping long enough to give them an incredulous stare.

“There’s fifty cents in it for you,” said Heyes as Bones turned back to his chore. “And the Gold Dust has drinks half price for Christmas.”

Bones stared at the two boys, frowning and tugging at his snowy beard. “I got no suit,” he muttered.

“We do,” Heyes told him, having found the cheap disguise at the bottom of the box of antique decorations in the attic.

Bones ran a hand over his face. “Can’t believe I’m doing this.” He shook Heyes’ outstretched hand. “Pay beforehand?”

“After.”

A pained sigh. “After. But nobody sits on my lap.”

“You just deliver the packages, Bones. We’ll tell you which kid gets what.”

And so it was that, after a Christmas dinner that left every child replete for once in their lives, a (fairly) hearty “ho-ho-ho” sounded from the foyer. The kids, ignoring Old Criley’s shouts for order, stampeded for the front room of the Home. Heyes and the Kid, who’d left the table early, kept the crowd from trampling the man in the threadbare red suit.

“Settle down,” Heyes bellowed. “When you hear your name called out, you can step up and see what Santa’s brought you.”

Within fifteen minutes, each child had a new toy in their hands. Heyes turned to “Santa” and handed him the Kid’s last fifty cents. “A deal’s a deal,” he said.

“But I still got two more left,” Bones said in a puzzled tone of voice.

Heyes exchanged a glance with the Kid as Bones dug inside the sack and pulled out the packages, which he handed to the smaller boy.

“It says “Heyes” on one and “Kid” on the other,” Heyes read. He looked at Bones.

“Hey, you know I can’t read,” the man said, pocketing his payment.

Heyes, eyes narrowed with suspicion, handed the Kid his package and studied his own. The Kid immediately untied the string and unwrapped the brown paper.

“Hey, a toy pistol! What’d you get, Heyes?”

“A new deck of cards.”

“Why are you frowning. You needed a new deck.”

“Kid, you didn’t make enough money to buy two more gifts. And I sure didn’t have anything left.”

The Kid looked puzzled for a moment, then he grinned and clapped his friend on the shoulder. “Told you he was real.”

**

A full-grown Heyes shakes his head, dispelling the memory. “I can’t believe we were so blasted gullible”

The Kid clouts his best friend on the shoulder. “You explain where them presents came from then, Heyes. I’ll wait.”

Heyes opens his mouth. He shrugs. “Merry Christmas, partner.”