The Daily Alaska empire Newspaper, December 18, 1932, Page 25

THE DAILY ALASKA EMPIRE, SUNDAY, DEC. 18, 1932. Fourteenth Christmas Down around the Bowery, Christ- mas comes in murkily, Even more 50 than in the old days when there was an air of lurid fsetivity to this down-at-the-heel section of the greatest metropolis of the = worl All that has gone now. There are no more knee high doors to invite the sordid reveler or the threadbare celebrant.| All that remains of a plcmresquE! yesterday are the rows of lean and lusterless buildings which housz petty shops and lunch counter eating-places and men's hotels,| where the wayfarer may obtain a cot for fifteen cents and a cruller for five. Tom Mason, who had a three- days’ growth of beard, a turned- up coat collar and a pulled-down cap visor, and who walked close to| the sordid buildings, as if for their| sordid protection, was one of hun-| dreds who presented almost precisely | his personal appearance as Christ- mas week descended sootily upon the Bowery. ‘ Try as you would, however, it was impossible to keep out that Tem Paused Before the Window of a Telegraph Office. pemeating sense of holiday. There was tinsel-fringe already dangling in the sooty- window of a second- hand shoe store. On a level with the elevated railroad, rows of um- washed windows showed the dim outline of holly wreaths. Up in the sleeping ward of the men's hotel where Tom Mason was in the habit of hiring a cot for fifteen cents a night, some wag had past- ed a red paper Santa Claus against the window pene. In spite of one's self, even when one had every rea- son to desire to forget or ignore, Christmas week elbowed its way into these murky recesses of the city. Once Tom, lurking along as he was wont to do, pausing for a while in doorways, chatting with the dim outline of figures who joined him there and then ambling - along again, picking up a window wash- ing or a floor sweeping job here and there, paused before the plate glass window of a telegraph of- fice. The Christmas blurbs displayed there sent a laugh along Tom's ironic slanting mouth. “Wire to Mother.” “Let Mother here from you this Christmas.” “Wire happi- ness to that aching, waiting heart back there.” “It's Christmas, re- member the folks back home.” Cheap melodramatic appeal like this, Mason reasoned, had its place after all. More than one Bowery bum, reading these remind- ers, might quite conceivably slink back home to gladden some wait- ing heart. Thus Tom Mason, ambling away his furtive meaningless days, was apt upon occasion to reason or meditate. But most of the time 1t was just a case of apathy with him. One had to pass the days somehow, and one had to eat to) live, so for the most part life with him consisted of working the few hours a day necessary to put food in his body and then to lay that body on a cot. A failure of a man | mases. | Christmases {and children. | Briarcliff Manor there had been home he had created for them. Good, substantial marriages. He knew that the house in Briarcliff Manor, that had been bought and| paid for in the heyday of his well- being, was still occupied by the woman who was still legally bound | to him as wife. He thought of| her sometimes, as he thought of everything in his apathy, dimly| agd without affection. She had| been a high-spirited girl, who rode a horse magnificlently and who had won him with the quality of, her vitality, good nature and good | humor. Whatever had come con-| sequently, they had enjoyed thei brief heydey of their well-being to-| gether. Their children had come healthily and in close succession;| their founding of the family had| at the time seemed well worth the| doing. The changes began to come when the changes in Tom began to set in. Lurid, terrible, frightening changes. Children who shrank from him. A cold, halting, alienated wife. Debts. Decline. Catastropne. Then Tom's disappearance. It was bitter to the man who had spent fourtesn years slinking close to the sinister buildings of the Bowery to look upon the hor- ror of the decline and fall of his empire. And there was no doubt about it, sneer as hz would inward-| ly at the second-rate appeal of the telegraph advertisements, some of his apathy seemed to fall away | from him at Christmastide and an| ache in his heart begin to gnaw its way through. | More probably than not, there were white - haired mothers who| would burn candlelights in windows on Christmas eve for recalcitrant sons, who instead of returning to them, would be lurking in Bowery dives on Christmas eve. Fourteen| Christmases on that Bowery hnd1 brought a chronic chill to the heart of Tom Mason. After all, it was impossible, if you were hum- an, not to recall happier Christ- | | There had been happy, glowim" in Tom's life; as a| child in the home of his parents; | as a father and husband in the home he had created for his wifc| At the home in| one Christmas when his thres bab- | ies, just for the fun and excite-| ment of it, had been brought in to the laden Christmas table in an enormous wash basket that was all decorated in holly sprigs. Therz had been a Christmas eve in that same big house, when he and his wife had worked until past mid- | night, decorating three individual Christmas trees for the three babies. Yes, Tom, even as the others who slunk through these Bowery Christmases, had his memories. This Christmas, for some reason or another, probably because his vi-| tality was at lowest ebb, the mem-| ories lay damper and heavier on | his spirit than they had in all the if ever there was one; and a fail- ure that had come about without any particular reason. Indeed it was a failure that was inconceivable to those who had known him in his youth, when life had promised and even been fulfilled to the extent of marriage with a woman of his own excellent social sphere, subsequent success in business, and the establishment of a home and family. The declins, when it began, had been relentless and consistent. The decline and fall of Tom Mason was the old soiled, repeti- tions one of appetites, the alien- ated affections of family and brok- en fortunes. It had been fourteen years since Tom had encountered any members of that family, although from time to time he read in the newspapers, accounts and notices that kept him in toueh, mmmwm He knew thal P =5 She Had Been High-Spirited and Rode Magnificiently. fourteen years. It seemed to Tom that his life was like a gray pro- cession marching like gray cowled figures, one by one, to his grave. | fourteen behind Tom the courage, or the coward- ice, call it what you will, to take this way out, although all the while there was boiling within him the consciousness that another of the Christmases similar to the it, would not be endurable. And so, in spite of his sophis- ticated abhorrence of the second- 4| rate sentimentality of the write-to- mother blurbs on the plate glass | window-front of the telegraph of- fice, Tom found himself on Christ- mas eve, standing on the porch of the house he had built for his wifé and family in Briarcliff Manor. Either he had rung the bell, or some on: inside had opened the | door to the crunching of his foot- | steps along the gravel walk. The figure of his wife, smaller than he remembered it, was standing in the doorway with a lighted candle in her hand. It smote Tom as Time and again this Chirstmas, | as the holly wreaths began to shine dimly through the dirty windows| of his district, Tom found himself asking this sinister question, Was this cowled, gray procession . of his days worth the living? More and more frequently, as these thoughts squatted upon him, Tom found his badly-shod feet wander- ing down toward Brooklyn bridge. Countless men and women had jumped off it for surcease from the misery of failure. It seemed as good & way as any to avoid the one mors meaningless Christmas. laughable, that lighted candle. All | that was needed now was the blinding snow storm to give the | picture the final melodramatic | touch. “Come in, Tom,” said his | wife, almost in the manner of one who had been waiting an arrival and had opened the door to greet him. - On her words, the winds blew out the candle. | All that Tom foolishly could find | to say was, “Your candle's gone | out, Pauline.” | “It's all right,” she said even- ly. “Come in. It was only burn- | And yet somehow, there was not in ing for you.” Ye Yuletide R’ 'MERRY CHRISTMAS We are pleased to extend the Season’s Greetings To our many customers and friends J. B. CARO & CO. b Sincerely Y ours tings Merry Christmas Happy New Year It is our hope that the pat- ronage we have enjoyed during the year has been justified in our service to our friends. We thank you and wish you all the hap- piness of the season. Juneau Laundry bad married out of the nest of the meat, flavored with onion angl most used in lighting the Christ- | Celebrated Christmas mas tree, and that reduces the| curry powder and thickened wifh fire danger materially. If candles| ' are to be used in the decoration On Way to North Pole|pcuit, then' arrowroot cocoa —and they undoubtedly lend an ?lz | biscuit, hoosh sweetened, Captain Scott and his men on|plum pudding, then cocoa effect not to be obtained by the|their way to the Pole once cele-|risins, and finally a dessert clecizic lights— they should be brated Christmas day by having a |caramels and ginger." “After placed on the mantel and in other |wash in a cupful of water each |this” says Scott, “it was diffi secure locations where contact with |and by washing their shirts. On |tc move. Wilson and I couldn’y their pretty blazes is not likely to|another occasion, after being on |finish our share of the plum pude be made. |short rations they kept Christmas ding. We felt thoroughly warm In Christmas sports involving | day by consuming such luxuries|and slept splendidly.” But the the slightest danger, children|as raisins and chocolates for their |advance was slow the following should be directed in their play by |breakfast and for supper they in- |day owing, probably to the tights an older person who is competent dulged in four courses. First of ening of the night before. 4 to effect a rescue if necessary— |all, there was a full whack of S = (Charles Frederick Wadsworth.) pemmican, with slices of hors?| Make Millions Thinz—and B\jl Protect Children When Celebrating Christmas Christmas time being a season of joy; every prercaution should be taken to prevent any untoward circumstance which might enter into its celebration, To0 olten the careless placing of lighted candles has resulted in painful burns, and even death to those participating in the Yule- tife festivities, “Santa Claus” has been the victim in innumerable cases. Tiny clectric lights now are L+ T 2 We’re glad indeed to be alive this CHRISTMAS SEASON and to know so many good 'people to whom we wish T A Merry, Merry Christmas and Happy, Prosperous New Year The First National Bank »