Major Pendallas.
A CHRISTMAS STORY.
By Frank R. Stockton.
N December 24, 1880, I was standing in a little American country railway station, in a state of perplexity. Near me, sitting in a chair by the stove, was a young lady, also in a state of perplexity. Facing us both stood the station-master, who had been in a state of perplexity, but was getting out of it.
"I'll see what I can do for you."
"Just you wait here ten minutes," he said, "and I'll see what I can do for you,' and putting on a fur cap and an ulster, he went out of doors.
The state of the case was this: Miss Welden, the lady by the stove, was on her way to join a Christmas party at the house of her uncle, Mr. Dolliver, some seven miles from the station, and I, invited to the same house, had been delighted to meet her on the train. We were good friends, and had studied art together in Paris. When we left the city in a morning train, a little snow was beginning to fall, and as we journeyed northward we found the snowfall heavier and heavier, and we had arrived at this little village of Boynton at three o'clock in the afternoon, an hour behind time.
From Boynton to the Dolliver house we were to go by a stage coach, but the stage driver had left more than an hour previously, hurrying away before his ordinary time of starting, for fear the road would be blocked up before he could get to his home, a good twelve miles away, and assuring himself that there would be no passengers for him on such a day.
It was reasonable enough that we should be perplexed, for we could not see, nor at first could the station-master see, how we were to get to our journey's end that day. If we would wait until next day, he told us, the stage driver would be back in a sleigh. He said he would be sure to come—for Christmas packages, if not for passengers. But we could not wait until next day. It would be better to return to the city in the next down train, if, happily, one should come. We could not hope that the Dollivers would send for us, for if they saw the stage pass without stopping, they would be sure
