Christmas

kind of stone. You say how you think it'd ought to be marked. That's about all there is to tell except about Yes. He's six years old now and Aunt Mary this ain't a place for him. He's a

him!" said Mar

gs by freight. He ain't got much. You couldn't help but like him and I

n Bl

n. It was twenty years ago that he had been coming to the house-this same house-and she had thought that he was coming to see her, had never thought of Lily at all till Lily had told her of h

t many times, and kept reading the

e and went near to the warmth of the fire, then to the freedom of the window against which the snow lay piled, then she sat down in the place where she worked, beside her patterns. The

d just shaken the rugs in the snow-Lily had been sitting, a stool-one of the stools now at length banished to the shed-holding the hurt ankle that had kept her from the picnic. Adam had stayed an hour, and they had sat beside Lily. He had come again and again, and they had always sat beside Lily. Mary remembered that those were the days when she was happy in things-in the house and the look of the rooms and of the little garden from the porch, and of the old

had borne burdens. The death of her parents, gadflys of need, worst of all a curious feeling that the place closed against her was somehow herself-

oy and Adam's," she kept saying; "

gether and all the tasks of their upbringing were finished. Then she thought that the remembering of those days of her happiness and her pain, and the ache of what might have been and of what never was, ha

y, and because he had said it to everything. "The baby can say 'Yes,'" Lily had written once; "I guess it's all he'll ever be able to say. He says it all day long. He won't try to say anything else." And once later: "We've taken to calling the baby 'Yes,' and now he calls himself that. 'Yes wants it,' he says, and 'Take Yes,' and 'Yes is going off now.' His father likes it. He says y

a place for him. He's a nice little fellow and I hate

by the ranch ... it was absurd to send him that long journey ... so she went through it all, denying with all the ol

er hour. As she took from the clock shelf the key to the barn, some one rapped at the back door and came through the cold kitchen wit

t want to roll this thing, so I carried it flat

r. "I'll undo it. Who is it of?"

enny, "but I've always liked it ar

figure was that of a youth, done by a master of the times-the head and shoulders

ike it enough to hang it up, hang it up. It's

ld the picture

ncy to it. I'll have it up on the wall. M

the dark. To Mary these were sunk in a great obscurity and insignificance, and even Jenny being there was unimportant beside the thing that her letter had brought to think about. They stepped out into the clear, glittering night, with

Jenny, ther

Mary an

uldn't bear not to have an

" Mar

ou kno

se it's your and

hat isn't all why. I

ry's and stood silent. And, M

y else," Jenn

turned to her

enny!"

" said

r a moment, Jenny sayi

ished. "That seems so wonderful to me-

o. Mary, the shawled figure on the upper step, looked d

u should tell me that-now. I have

s?" aske

nt I should have the li

wonderful for you! Why, it's a

ver come to her directly, as a secret and a marvel. News of the village births usually came in gossip, in commiseration, in suspicion. Falling as did this c

," Jenny was saying.

and kissed Jenny, when Jenny came

e even breath of the cows, the quiet safety of the place, met her. She was wondering at herself, but she was struggling not at all. It was as if concerning the little boy, something had d

but take him, I s'pose," she thought

ell of the clover in the hay of the mangers, a