Mrs. Wilkins gave me a new Panama hat, the brim of which had been cut by a careless trimmer.
“They was throwin’ it in the trash-box when I seen ’em,” she explained, on presenting the rescued head-covering to me. “All you have to do is to line the brim, turn it up on the side or behind or before—whichever way most becomes you in the face—and fix the trimmin’ so the cut won’t show. It’ll look as good as a twenty-five-dollar hat when you get through.”
On the strength of having given me such an expensive hat she asked me to keep her cooking utensils and breadbox. And as an eleventh-hour reminder, hung her winter coat and furs in my tiny little wardrobe—all to be kept until she “found time” to send for them.
Alice, of course, left behind all the household equipments gathered by the two of us. One of her winter hats, being too large to pack in her trunk, and not considered of sufficient value or becomingness to warrant a special shipment, also fell to my lot. And along with it a gas-lamp, a camp-stool, two writing-desk sets, a soiled Indian blanket—all Christmas presents.
The little organist likewise bequeathed to me a number of Christmas presents, along with her books and sheet-music too ragged to pack. The restaurant owner gave me a metal flask containing about a pint of whiskey, about which he declared: “’Tain’t the kind a man would drink—not twice if he knew it. But I thought, being a lady, you might like to have it around.”
Needless to state I thanked him graciously. Just as I did the reporter when he carted in twenty odd books, a file of daily newspapers, two sofa-pillows, and a moth-eaten slumber-robe. The books, sofa-pillows and the robe had been sent him at that season of the year when the world goes mad on the subject of giving—give wisely if they know how and have the money, but give they must.
A few days after the newspaperman’s departure a bamboo walking-cane with a wabbly head, a silk umbrella minus one rib, and a grease-paint outfit was presented to me by the man in the front skylight room.
“I used to belong to the profession,” he told me, explaining the paints. “Now that I am a promoter I don’t need it. And this umbrella—one of the ribs is broken—but it’s silk—heavy silk. I saved it to have it mended. One of the companies of which I’m a director cut a melon the other day, so I don’t need to use a mended umbrella.”