“It’s the first thing I’ve found. Or anyway the first real thing, because you didn’t even pick up the dime and the button. Besides, if you don’t put it on how are you going to know if it works?”
“The mail carrier’s been here already today,” he pointed out.
“Then if you get some more letters or something, you’ll know it’s a real charm.”
He was not often subject to sudden insights, but he had one then; it was that he was arguing with a doll about a magic root. He nodded his surrender and hung the charm around his neck.
“Joseph looked, and to his astonishment saw a fine sleigh drawn by four white ponies. ‘What do you see?’ Jacob asked him.
“‘I see a magnificent sleigh,’ Joseph answered. ‘It’s bright with gilt and dancing golden bells.’
“‘Ah! Continue, please,’ said Jacob. ‘Give me more, dear brother.’
“‘A big coachman in a high fur hat and a big brown fur coat cracks his long, black whip above the ponies. Beside him sits a tiny groom in a scarlet jacket, so that they look like a bear and a monkey in the circus. Riding in the sleigh is a woman wrapped in white furs.’
“‘Wonderful!’ Jacob exclaimed, and his pen danced over the paper so busily that he seemed not to hear the tinkle of sleigh bells as the sleigh stopped before their little house.”
“Open this other drawer,” Tina instructed him. “And when I jump across, you can shut this one. I think she’s the editor of the
He pulled out the drawer that held his socks. “Maybe,” he said.
“Joseph saw that the woman was a princess, and he bowed to the ground. ‘Are you Jacob?’ she inquired. ‘The publisher of our little paper has sent all your stories to me, knowing that they are just the sort of thing I like. I forbade him to tell you of it until I had rewarded you.’
“‘No, Highness,’ Joseph said honestly, ‘it’s my brother who writes the stories. If you’ll wait a moment, I’ll bring him out to pay his respects to you.’
“‘That’s certainly not necessary,’ said the princess. ‘I shall go in to pay
“But when Joseph hastened to open the door, he found that Jacob was already in the doorway. ‘Your Highness,’ Jacob said, ‘what my brother has told you is not wholly true. It is indeed he who writes my stories—I, as you see, am blind. I merely write them down.’”
“That was a sad story,” Tina said. “Sometimes fairy tales are too much like real life. But I liked it.”
He nodded and closed the book. “So did I.”
There was a knock at the door.
Magic!
There was another knock. A voice muffled by the door announced, “UPS.”
“All right,” he said, and opened it.
The UPS driver was short and dark, and looked angry. “This Seven
He nodded.
“Here it is. You want it out here or in there?”
“Is that for me?” he asked.
“This is Seven
“I wasn’t expecting—”
The driver snarled. “Your name Green?”
“Yes, but—”
“Want me to take it off my buggy and leave it in the hall?”
He shook his head. “I guess you’d better bring it inside.”
The driver grasped the handles of the handcart and gave a mighty heave, tilting the cart back enough to put the center of gravity of the crate over its axle. “You should have seen me getting this bastard in that elevator. You’d have laughed your head off. Usually a thing like this goes to a loading dock.”
He asked, “Who sent it?”
“Hell, I don’t know. It says on the side someplace.”
He bent to look. “It’s just an address.”
“If you read it, you know everything I do. Here, I’ll move it over so it don’t block your TV.”
“Leave it in front of the TV,” he said. “If you put it over there, I won’t be able to get into the dinette.” He got a bill from his wallet and extended it to the driver, who accepted it in silence.
Tina called, “You should say thank you.” She was standing in the bedroom doorway, apparently having climbed from his sock drawer.
The driver glanced around uneasily. “You say that?”
