Miracle on 34th Street Read online

  “Yes!” said Doris. “We found that out.”

  “They’re absolutely harmless,” Dr. Pierce assured her. “There are thousands of people leading perfectly normal lives who have similar mild delusions. Like that fellow who claims he’s a Russian Prince. He’s been proven wrong time after time but nothing has ever shaken his story. And look at him, he’s a highly respected and successful restaurateur in Hollywood! ”

  The Doctor had known and loved Kris for a long time. All Doris’ fears were absolutely groundless, he assured her. “Mr. Kringle is incapable of harming anyone,” he explained. “His delusion is for good. He just wants to be friendly and helpful.” The Doctor’s only concern was for the old man’s welfare. He wanted to be sure that Kris was all right.

  “It would be a little better, I think, if someone would keep on eye on him . . . I mean after working hours. You know, Kris is a very old man and I hate to think of him wandering about New York all alone.” Doris was grateful and relieved. She promised Dr. Pierce that this would be done.

  Mr. Sawyer wore an imposing frown as he entered Mrs. Walker’s office with Mr. Shellhammer. “This man has a definite fixed delusion,” Sawyer told her. Doris knew that, but the Doctor from the Maplewood Home had just convinced her that he was perfectly sweet and harmless. But Sawyer was not convinced. He could not be sure from one examination. “Cases like this often become violent when their delusion is attacked.” Mr. Sawyer had made a special study of them. If this man were kept on here, he could take no responsibility in this matter. Doris said she would then. She was certain that Dr. Pierce knew what he was talking about. Sawyer rose to leave. “I warn you, then, Mrs. Walker, that I wash my hands of the whole affair. If this man grows violent—if something happens—the responsibility will be entirely yours!”

  In spite of this warning, Doris and Shellhammer agreed that, as far as Mr. Kringle was concerned, their worries were over. All that was necessary was for someone to keep an eye on him—sort of take custody of him.

  “I think that’s a splendid solution,” said Mr. Shellhammer. “And, of course, you’re just the person to do it, Mrs. Walker!”

  “Oh, no!” said Doris, shaking her head. “I live all alone with my daughter. How can I have him stay with me?”

  “Well,” said Shellhammer, thoughtfully, “my boy’s away at school. We do have an empty room.”

  “Wonderful!” said Doris.

  “But I’ll have to arrange it with Mrs. Shellhammer first, and that will take a little doing. I’ll tell you what. If you’ll take him home to dinner tonight, I’ll talk to my wife and call you up later.”

  And so it was agreed.

  7

  IN spite of Dr. Pierce, Doris was just a little bit apprehensive about having Mr. Kringle in her home. The dinner would be quite an ordeal she was afraid. So she called Fred and invited him as a form of insurance. Fred accepted eagerly, especially when he learned who the guest of honor was to be. He even supplied the entree—a fine venison steak which a friend at the office had given him. Cleo had her own special way of preparing it. It looked very tempting, indeed, but Mr. Kringle couldn’t touch a mouthful. He was most apologetic.

  “It’s not that I’m a vegetarian,” he explained. “I love steak or pork or mutton, you know. But deer meat—well, I just couldn’t!”

  As a matter of fact, Kris turned out to be quite a gourmet, expounding on many kinds of choice dishes and how they should be cooked. Apparently he had come by his vast tummy honestly through years of hearty eating. The dinner actually went off far better than Doris had expected.

  Fred and Doris helped Cleo with the dishes and Mr. Kringle seized the opportunity to have a little talk with Susan. All through dinner he had been studying her solemn, wistful little face and hoping for just such a chance as this. Susan had been studying the old man, too. She was very puzzled by him. She knew her mother was right, of course. Mr. Kringle couldn’t be Santa Claus because that was only another silly myth. And yet Mr. Kringle was different from anyone she had ever seen before. His talk with the little Dutch girl had made a deep impression, and when he had told her mother that he was Santa, it hadn’t seemed silly to her at all. She knew it couldn’t be true, but she secretly wished that it would be.

  “And what sort of games do you play with the other children?” Mr. Kringle wanted to know. Susan didn’t play with them very much, she told him. The games they played were silly.

  “What sort of games?” Kris asked.

  “Well, today they were playing zoo,” said Susan scornfully. “All of them were animals. They asked me what kind of an animal I wanted to be. I didn’t want to be an animal, so I didn’t play.”

  “Why didn’t you tell them you were a lion or a bear?”

  “Because I’m not a lion. I’m a little girl,” said Susan flatly.

  “But the other children weren’t animals, either. They were just pretending.”

  “That’s what makes the game so silly.”

  “I don’t feel that way at all,” said Kris. “It’s really a lot of fun, if you know how to play it. But of course you’ve got to use your imagination. Do you know what the imagination is, Susan?”

  The child nodded sagely. “That’s when you see things that aren’t really there.”

  “Well, not exactly,” said Kris with a smile. “No—to me the imagination is a place all by itself. A very wonderful country. You’ve heard of the British Nation and the French Nation?”

  Susan nodded again.

  “Well, this is the Imagination. And once you get there you can do almost anything you want. How would you like to make snowballs in the summertime? Or drive a big bus down Fifth Avenue? How would you like to have a ship of your own that makes daily trips to China and Australia?”

  Susan’s face broke into a quiet little smile. Perhaps this was silly but it was a lot of fun to think about.

  “How would you like to be the Statue of Liberty in the morning and fly south with a flock of geese in the afternoon?”

  Susan nodded eagerly in spite of herself. “Well, it’s very simple really,” Kris said. “All it takes is a little practice. Wouldn’t you like to try?”

  “Yes,” said Susan softly.

  “I thought so,” said Mr. Kringle, beaming. “Now then let’s start in with something easy. How would you like to be a monkey in the zoo? That sounds like fun, eh?”

  “I’d like to,” said Susan, “but I don’t know how to be a monkey, Mr. Kringle.”

  “Sure you do!” said Kris with assurance. “Now just bend over a little—that’s right—and curl your hands in.”

  And so the first lesson began. Susan was a little slow and self-conscious at first, but in a few minutes she began to get the hang of it and much to his delight, Kris found that he had a very apt and eager pupil.

  In the kitchen Doris was wishing out loud that Mr. Shellhammer would call and take Mr. Kringle off her hands. She didn’t like the idea of Kris’ influence over Susan—even for one evening. Fred, on the other hand, was delighted. Kris, he felt, was just what the doctor ordered for a far too serious six-year-old.

  “You ought to have him up for dinner often,” Fred suggested.

  “No, thank you!” said Doris emphatically. “He’s a sweet old man but the less he’s around Susan, the better I’ll like it.”

  With a hopeless shrug Fred picked up a silver platter.

  “Where does this go?” he asked.

  “In the living room,” said Doris, “on the second shelf.”

  As Fred came into the room the lesson was at its height. With amazing rapidity Susan had evolved from a monkey to a fairy queen. With a royal touch of her magic wand she was about to render Mr. Kringle, her faithful knight, invisible. Fred watched this performance with astonishment and delight. It was a crying shame, he thought, that Susan could not see more of Mr. Kringle, for in Kris he saw the perfect antidote for Doris’ undeviating skepticism. And a little more contact with the old man might do wonders for Doris, herself. If only the
re were some way. Then suddenly Fred had a brilliant idea.

  “Where are you staying, Mr. Kringle?” he asked.

  Kris explained that he was temporarily living with his friend, Jim, the zoo keeper. He felt, however, that he was imposing and he would have to find some other place. Fred jumped at the chance. He had an extra bed in his apartment and he would be delighted to have Mr. Kringle stay with him. Kris was quick to accept. It would give him a chance to see more of Susan and her mother, and that was what he wanted more than anything.

  In the kitchen, Doris was talking to Mr. Shellhammer on the phone. He had encountered considerable difficulty with his wife, but he would keep his promise. He would take Mr. Kringle in. Doris put the receiver down for a moment and went into the living room.

  “What do you think?” she said to Kris, with an air of great surprise. “Mr. Shellhammer wants to know if you’d like to stay with him! He lives right near the store and it would be so handy for you.”

  But Mr. Kringle declined with thanks. He had already accepted Mr. Gayley’s invitation.

  “Mr. Gayley?” asked Doris, dumbfounded. She turned and glanced at Fred. He was nodding and smiling innocently. So Fred had double-crossed her! With a grim “I see,” she went back into the kitchen to tell Mr. Shellhammer that Mr. Kringle had made previous arrangements.

  And so Kris gathered his few simple belongings and moved in with Fred that night. Just as he was about to turn the light out, Fred looked over at Mr. Kringle, snugly settled in the other bed. “I’m very glad to have you, Mr. Kringle,” he confessed, “because now I’ll find out something I’ve always wanted to know. Does Santa sleep with his whiskers in or out of the blankets?”

  “Always sleep with ’em out,” said Kris. “The cold air makes ’em grow!”

  8

  TO Doris, Mr. Kringle was still just a slightly touched old gentleman. But in the next few days she found that, sane or not, his influence was spreading amazingly and with astonishing results. Mr. Macy had carried out his plan to put Kris’ policy into effect. Every employee throughout the great store cheerfully recommended other concerns and products to his customers. He had followed this up with a series of large advertisements in all the New York papers. Not only had Macy’s already gained many new accounts, but the idea was spreading to other stores.

  One block down from 34th Street, for example, Mr. Gimbel threw the Macy ad angrily across his desk and turned to his assembled staff.

  “Why didn’t one of you think of this?” he fumed. “Now Macy is suddenly a benevolent spirit, thinking only of the welfare of the public! And what does that make me? A profiteering money-grubber. Well, two can play at this game! From now on if we haven’t got what a customer wants, send him over to Macy’s!”

  And so it started to grow. Other stores quickly followed suit. This new idea became the subject of editorials in the newspapers. Articles began to appear in magazines. Radio comedians made quips about it. Almost over night it spread from coast to coast. Mr. Kringle, the center and symbol of the whole idea, was receiving an incredible amount of publicity.

  In spite of herself, Doris was impressed. She admitted as much as she and Kris went home together one evening. “Little did I dream,” she told him, “when I saw you standing next to that float that I was picking out the man who was going to revolutionize the entire merchandising business!”

  “Neither did I,” Kris admitted.

  “I’m very glad that I did it,” said Doris. Mr. Kringle smiled happily. It was the first good sign and he was quite encouraged.

  He seemed to be making progress in other directions, for on Sunday, Kris went for a walk in the park with his cane on one arm and Susan on the other. Inevitably they wound up at the zoo. Kris stopped to feed the reindeer. As usual, they came running to him and ate out of his hand. Susan was very much impressed. It wasn’t just the reindeer, either. Being with Mr. Kringle was always an exciting adventure. He was full of all sorts of jokes and jingles and stories. Her mother would not approve, she felt sure, but it was a lot of fun.

  Now, as they walked along together, the old man broached the subject of her Christmas wish. It didn’t seem right to him that a little girl like Susan had no wishes at all. She must want something. Every child did. Susan hesitated a long time before she answered. She had only one wish—and it was a big one. If he really was Santa Claus, she thought to herself, he could make it come true. And so she told Kris her one wish was for a house—a real house, not a toy one—where she and her mother could live. Living in a New York apartment was not much fun for a girl her age. The house would have a real big yard with trees in it, and a swing, then she could just run out and play any time she wanted, instead of having to wait for Cleo or someone to take her to Central Park. Kris gulped. “That’s quite a tall order,” he admitted, “but I’ll do my best.”

  “Well,” said Susan with conviction, “if you’re really Santa you can get it for me! And if you can’t, then you’re only a nice man with a white beard, like Mother says!”

  Kris realized the challenge. Susan was a mighty shrewd little girl and she had placed him squarely on the spot. From inside her little purse she took the very worn and folded page of a magazine and handed it to him. It was a drawing, an architect’s dream of a charming little Colonial home. Susan explained the floor plan to Kris in great detail. Whew! What a tough order, thought the old man, as he pocketed the drawing. He began to worry a little himself.

  “Every child can’t get every wish,” Kris told her, “but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a Santa Claus. Some children wish for things they couldn’t use if they got them. Lots of little boys want real locomotives, for example. Why, they couldn’t even get them into their houses. And little girls wish for baby brothers and sisters, even though their parents wouldn’t be able to care for them properly. And besides,” he continued, “if every child got what he wanted right away, life wouldn’t be half so much fun now, would it? Sometimes it’s better to keep on wishing, so that when you get your wish you really appreciate it! In other words,” Kris concluded, “there are lots of reasons why every wish a child makes can’t come true.”

  Susan could see that he was right in certain cases. “But I’ve wished for this house a long time, Mr. Kringle,” she told him, “and I’ll appreciate it if I get it!” There was nothing more that Kris could say. It was up to him now, and he knew it.

  That night, as Fred and he were going to bed, Mr. Kringle began his campaign. He realized that there was only one way he could make Susan’s wish come true. Mr. and Mrs. Fred Gayley might live in such a house, but Doris Walker could obviously never swing it alone. And so he casually questioned Fred about his relationship with Doris. Fred was very frank about it. He admitted being in love with Doris, but he also admitted that he could make no headway at all. He told Kris the story of her first marriage and what it had done to Doris. Now her whole life was organized about her daughter and her career, to the complete exclusion of any normal social activities. Doris saw to it that she had no private life at all.

  Kris nodded sadly. “Doris is only one example,” he said. “That is what’s happening to thousands and thousands of people in the world.”

  “I’m afraid you’re right,” said Fred.

  “We’ve got to do something about it right away!” said Kris with determination.

  “You’re right, we do,” said Fred. “But I wish I knew just what—”

  Mr. Kringle was full of ideas. He persuaded Fred to take Doris out to dinner the following evening. Fred was only too eager to ask her, but she had steadfastly refused up to now. This time, Kris convinced him, things would be different. He would see to that.

  The next morning Kris gave Doris a great sales talk about her neighbor, Mr. Gayley. Doris seemed to agree with everything he said. He also quite casually mentioned the need for recreation, especially for someone who worked as hard as Doris, and again she agreed.

  So when Fred appeared in the Toy Department at closing time, Kris beamed a
t him happily as he left his dais. Fred had come to take Doris to dinner, hadn’t he? Fred shook his head. Mrs. Walker was much too busy, as usual. She was working the whole evening. Her dinner would be a sandwich and coffee at her desk. So Fred had stopped by for Kris. He thought they could go home together.

  “Oh, I see,” said Mr. Kringle dryly. “She’s too busy to see you, eh? Well, perhaps if I talked to her . . .”

  “It’s no use,” Fred told him. “I’ve talked myself hoarse.”

  “I see,” Kris mused. “We’ll have to think of something.” There was a peculiar glint in Mr. Kringle’s eyes as he retired to the locker room to change.

  It seemed to Fred that he took a long time about it, too. Finally he went back to the locker room to find Kris. But the old man had gone. He had taken the service elevator down quite some time ago, the porter told him.

  What was Kris up to? Fred decided to return to Doris’ office and use the phone. Cleo had not seen him and nobody answered the phone in Fred’s apartment. Doris called the Maplewood Home, but he had not been there.

  By now Doris had become quite alarmed. Kris had punched his time card and placed it in the rack as usual when he left the store. That had been nearly three hours ago.

  But if Kris had met with disaster they could find no trace of it. They checked all the police stations, hospitals, and remembering Mr. Sawyer’s dire predictions, Doris, with her heart in her mouth, even called the psychopathic ward at Bellevue. Kris was no place to be found.

  As the evening wore on and their search continued, Doris’ anxiety grew and it was not based entirely on Mr. Macy and her job. Fred was surprised to find that Doris had grown much fonder of Mr. Kringle than she, herself, realized.