e
snow playhouses.

FOOTNOTE:

[T] From "Kristy's Queer Christmas," Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1904.

XXIX

MR. BLUFF'S EXPERIENCES OF HOLIDAYS[U]

OLIVER BELL BUNCE

"I HATE holidays," said Bachelor Bluff to me, with some little
irritation, on a Christmas a few years ago. Then he paused an instant,
after which he resumed: "I don't mean to say that I hate to see people
enjoying themselves. But I hate holidays, nevertheless, because to me
they are always the saddest and dreariest days of the year. I shudder at
the name of holiday. I dread the approach of one, and thank heaven when
it is over. I pass through, on a holiday, the most horrible sensations,
the bitterest feelings, the most oppressive melancholy; in fact, I am
not myself at holiday-times."

"Very strange," I ventured to interpose.

"A plague on it!" said he, almost with violence. "I'm not inhuman. I
don't wish anybody harm. I'm glad people can enjoy themselves. But I
hate holidays all the same. You see, this is the reason: I am a
bachelor; I am without kin; I am in a place that did not know me at
birth. And so, when holidays come around, there is no place anywhere
for me. I have friends, of course; I don't think I've been a very sulky,
shut-in, reticent fellow; and there is many a board that has a place for
me--but not at Christmas-time. At Christmas, the dinner is a family
gathering; and I've no family. There is such a gathering of kindred on
this occasion, such a reunion of family folk, that there is no place for
a friend, even if the friend be liked. Christmas, with all its
kindliness and charity and good-will, is, after all, deuced selfish.
Each little set gathers within its own circle; and people like me, with
no particular circle, are left in the lurch. So you see, on the day of
all the days in the year that my heart pines for good cheer, I'm without
an invitation.

"Oh, it's because I pine for good cheer," said the bachelor, sharply,
interrupting my attempt to speak, "that I hate holidays. If I were an
infernally selfish fellow, I wouldn't hate holidays. I'd go off and have
some fun all to myself, somewhere or somehow. But, you see, I hate to be
in the dark when all the rest of the world is in light. I hate holidays
because I ought to be merry and happy on holidays and can't.

"Don't tell me," he cried, stopping the word that was on my lips; "I
tell you, I hate holidays. The shops look merry, do they, with their
bright toys and their