mebody to take me in.

I'd have telegraphed for you and the childern to come to town, but Texas
is so far away, and you'd have got here too late, and you couldn't come
anyway, being sick, as you wrote me, and one of the kids having malary.
How is his blessed self to-day? I hope you're feeling better. Telegraph
if you ain't, and I'll take the first train home.

Well, last night I ate a horrible mockery of a Christmas dinner in a
deserted restaurant, and it gave me heartburn (in addition to heartache)
and a whole brood-stable of nightmares. I went to bed early, and stayed
awake late. Gee! that was an awful night.

I tried Philosophy--the next station beyond Despair. I said to myself,
"You old fool, why in the name of all that's sensible should you feel
so excited about one day more than another?" I wasn't so lonely the
day before Christmas, I ain't so lonely to-day, but then I was like
a small boy with the mumps and the earache on the Fourth of July.
The firecrackers will pop just as lively another day, but--well, the
universe was simply throwed all out of gear, like it must have been
when Joshua held up the moon--or was it the sun?

You remember reading me once about--I reckon it was Mr. Aldrich's
pleasing idea of the last man on earth; everybody killed off by a
pestilence or something, and him setting there by his lonely little
lonesome; and what would he have done if he had heard his door-bell
ring? Well, I reckon he'd have done what I'd have done if I'd met a
friend--given one wild whoop, wrapped his arms round his neck, kissed
him on both cheeks, and died with a faint gurgle of joy. I'd of been
glad to have died so, too.

Finally, I swore that if I ever foresaw myself being corralled again in
a strange city on Christmas, I'd put on a sandwich board or something
and march up and down the streets with a sign like this:

I'm lonely!
I'm homesick for a real
Christmas!
There must be others.
Let's get together!
Meet me at the Fountain
in Union Square!
We'll hang our stockings on the trees.
Perhaps some snow will fall in 'em.
Come one--Come all!
Both great and small!

I bet such a board would stir up a procession of exiles a mile