My Mother says that everybody in the world has got some special Gift.
Some people have one kind and some have another.
I got my skates and dictionary-book last Spring when I was nine. I"ve always had my freckles.
My brother Carol"s Gift is Being Dumb. No matter what anybody says to him he doesn"t have to answer "em.
There was an old man in our town named Old Man Smith.
Old Man Smith had a wonderful Gift.
It wasn"t a Christmas Gift like toys and games. It wasn"t a Birthday Gift all stockings and handkerchiefs.
It was the _Gift of Finding Things_!
He called it "The Gift of the Probable Places."
Most any time when you lost anything he could find it for you. He didn"t find it by floating a few tea-leaves in a cup. Or by trying to match cards. Or by fooling with silly things like ghosts. He didn"t even find it with his legs. He found it with his head. He found it by thinking very hard with his head.
People came from miles around to borrow his head. He always charged everybody just the same no matter what it was that they"d lost. One dollar was what he charged. It was just as much trouble to him he said to think about a thimble that was lost as it was to think about an elephant that was lost.--I never knew anybody who lost an elephant.
When the Post Master"s Wife lost her diamond ring she hunted more than a hundred places for it! She was most distracted! She thought somebody had stolen it from her! She hunted it in all the Newspapers! She hunted it in all the stores! She hunted it all up and down the Village streets!
She hunted it in the Depot carriage! She hunted it in the Hired Girl"s trunk! Miles and miles and miles she must have hunted it with her hands and with her feet!
But Old Man Smith found it for her without budging an inch from his wheel-chair! Just with his head alone he found it! Just by asking her a question that made her mad he found it! The question that made her mad was about her Baptismal name.--Her Baptismal name was Mehetabelle Euphemia.
"However in the world," said Old Man Smith, "did you get such a perfectly hideous name as Mehetabelle Euphemia?"
The Post Master"s wife was madder than Scat! She wrung her hands. She snapped her thumbs! She crackled her finger-joints!
"Never--_Never_," she said had she been "so insulted!"
"U-m-m-m--exactly what I thought," said Old Man Smith. "Now just when--if you can remember, was the last time that you felt you"d never been so insulted before?"
"Insulted?" screamed the Post Master"s Wife. "Why, I haven"t been so insulted as this since two weeks ago last Sat.u.r.day when I was out in my back yard under the Mulberry Tree dyeing my old white dress peach-pink!
And the Druggist"s Wife came along and asked me if I didn"t think I was just a little bit too old to be wearing peach-pink?--_Me_--_Too Old?
Me?_" screamed the Post Master"s Wife.
"U-m-m," said Old Man Smith. "Pink, you say? Pink?--A little powdered Cochineal, I suppose? And a bit of Cream o" Tartar? And more than a bit of Alum? It"s a pretty likely combination to make the fingers slippery.--And a lady what crackles her finger-joints so every time she"s mad,--and snaps her thumbs--and?--Yes! Under the Mulberry Tree is a _very Probable Place_!--One dollar, please!" said Old Man Smith.
And when the Grocer"s Nephew got suspended from college for sitting up too late at night and getting headaches, and came to spend a month with his Uncle and couldn"t find his green plaid overcoat when it was time to go home he was perfectly positive that somebody had borrowed it from the store! Or that he"d dropped it out of the delivery wagon working over-time! Or that he"d left it at the High School Social!
But Old Man Smith found it for him just by glancing at his purple socks!
And his plaid necktie. And his plush waistcoat.
"Oh, yes, of course, it"s perfectly possible," said Old Man Smith, "that you dropped it from the basket of a balloon on your way to a Missionary Meeting.--But have you looked in the Young Widow Gayette"s back hall?
"Bout three pegs from the door?--Where the shadows are fairly private?--One dollar, please!" said Old Man Smith.
And when the Old Preacher lost the Hymn Book that George Washington had given his grandfather, everybody started to take up the floor of the church to see if it had fallen down through a crack in the pulpit!
But Old Man Smith sent a boy running to beg "em not to tear down the church till they"d looked in the Old Lawyer"s pantry,--"bout the second shelf between the ice chest and the cheese crock. Sunday evening after meeting was rather a lean time with Old Preachers he said he"d always noticed.--And Old Lawyers was noted for their fat larders.--And there were certain things about cheese somehow that seemed to be soothin" to the memory.
"Why, how perfectly extraordinary!" said everybody.
"One dollar, please!" said Old Man Smith again.
And when Little Tommy Bent ran away to the city his Mother hunted all the hospitals for him! And made "em drag the river! And wore a long black veil all the time! And howled!
But Old Man Smith said, "Oh Shucks! It ain"t at all probable, is it, that he was aimin" at hospitals or rivers when he went away?--What"s the use of worryin" over the things he _weren"t_ aimin" at till you"ve investigated the things he _was_?"
"Aimin" at?" sobbed Mrs. Bent. "Aimin" at?--Who in the world could ever tell what any little boy was aimin" at?"
"And there"s something in that, too!" said Old Man Smith. "What did he look like?"
"Like his father," said Mrs. Bent.
"U-m-m. Plain, you mean?" said Old Man Smith.
"He was only nine years old," sobbed Mrs. Bent. "But he did love Meetings so! No matter what they was about he was always hunting for some new Meetings to go to! He just seemed naturally to dote hisself on any crowd of people that was all facing the other way looking at somebody else! He had a little cowlick at the back of his neck!" sobbed Mrs. Bent. "It was a comical little cowlick! People used to laugh at it!
He never liked to sit any place where there was anybody sitting behind him!"
"Now you"re talking!" said Old Man Smith. "Will he answer to the name of "Little Tommy Bent?""
"He will not!" said Mrs. Bent "He"s that stubborn! He"s exactly like his Father!"
Old Man Smith wrote an entirely new advertis.e.m.e.nt to put in the papers.
It didn"t say anything about Rivers! Or Hospitals! Or "Dead or Alive!"
It just said:
LOST: In the back seat of Most Any Meeting, a Very Plain Little Boy. Will _not_ answer to the name of "Little Tommy Bent." Stubborn, like his Father.
"We"ll put that in about being "stubborn,"" said Old Man Smith, "because it sounds quaint and will interest people."
"It won"t interest Mr. Bent!" sobbed Mrs. Bent. "And it seems awful cruel to make it so public about the child"s being plain!"
Old Man Smith spoke coldly to her.
"Would you rather lose him--handsome," he said. "Or find him--_plain_?"
Mrs. Bent seemed to think that she"d rather find him plain.
She found him within two days! He was awful plain. His shoes were all worn out. And his stomach was flat. He was at a meeting of men who sell bicycles to China. The men were feeling pretty sick. They"d sent hundreds and hundreds of he-bicycles to China and the Chinamen couldn"t ride "em on account of their skirts!--It was the smell of an apple in a man"s pocket that made Tommy Bent follow the man to the meeting.--And he answered to every name except "Tommy Bent" so they knew it was he!
"Mercy! What this experience has cost me!" sobbed Mrs. Bent.
"One dollar, please!" said Old Man Smith.
"It"s a perfect miracle!" said everybody.
"It "tain"t neither!" said Old Man Smith. "It"s plain Hoss Sense!