Christmas

ister's headstone and the few belongings which her sister had wi

else to tell you to do with him. Let me know when to expect him, a

would take charge of the child as far as the City, and there put him on his train for Old Trail Town. She would be notified just what day to expect him, an

y lay long awake, facing what it was going to

ay utterances, made with the burdened look that hid a secret

ch sand into the house. Y

y to start half the time ... but I can't he

ithout a coat closet. The children's cloaks

underclothes outgrown, and their waists soi

he remembered what unexpected places Mis' Winslow had buttoned-buttonholes that went up and down in the skirt bands, and so on. Armholes might be too small and

AT IT FROM PART WA

inking. And a child would like the bedroom wallpaper, with the owl border. When Summer came he could have the room over the dining room, with the kitchen roof sloping away from it where he could dry his hazelnuts-she had thought of the pasture hazelnuts, first thing. There were a good many things a boy would like about the place: the bird house where t

, the young face of his father. Something faded had been written below the picture, and this she had painstakingly rubbed away before she set the picture in its place. Next day, while she was working on Mis' Jane Moran's

new I knew," she thought with annoyed surprise. "I

the letter came, she went down town to the Amos Ames Emporium to buy a washbasin and pitcher for the room she meant the little

as present for anybody, are

guiltily an

want with dogs on the bas

whose faces are invariable forerunners of the sort of thing they are going

ever more. When's he

lessly. "It's an awful responsibi

ejected its own anxious lines

you never realize how hard they're pressing down o

her, her own fa

I am," she said; "I'm us

caps made so's they won't ravel?" she inquired capably of Abel Ames. "These are real good va

since that night in the stable, made the day a thing to be borne, to be breasted. The air was thick with snow, and in the whiteness the dreary familiarity of the drug store, the meat mark

raph to John not to send him. But Jenny-sh

neighbor was in the sitting room with Mrs. Wing. Jenny met Mary at the kitchen

Jenny said. "There ain't a fire up

opened. Jenny took the things out, one at a time, unfolded, discussed, compared, with all the tireless zeal of a robin with a straw in its mouth or of a tree, blossoming. "Smell of them," Jenny bade her

, a little tissue-paper parcel

ne more,"

d, hesitated

d we'd have the Christmas in my room, and I made some little things-just for fun, you know. But it won't be fair to do it now,

by'll be your Christmas. The t

and I have got the best of them, haven't we?

e have...."

tle, a crocheted cap, a first picture book, a casca

s its Christmas,

no. It seems as if it'd be kind o' lonesome to ge

wer. For no appreciable reason, she kept it

yours is coming?" Je

wo weeks from last night," she confe

, "I think mine will

he stair, Mary unexpectedly ref

d for what you showed me," she added, and hesitated. "I've got his room fixed up real nice. There'

day of snow they passed her house. She always heard them talking, and usually she heard, across at the corner, the click of the penny-in-the-slot machine, which no child seemed able to pass without pulling. To-night, as she heard them coming, Mary fumbled in her purse. Three, four, five pennies she found and ran across the street and dropped them in the slot machine, and gained her own

ed Bennet, who ha

ussie, and repeat

" said Tab Winsl

t again!" cried littl

served Pep,

nd ran on, their red mittens and mufflers flaming in the snow. Mar

made me do that

calling this room home, and looking for his books and his mittens, and knowing it better than any other place in the world. And there was Jenny, with that bottom drawerful, and pretty soon somebody that now was not, would be, and would be wearing t

going to be forty nuisances about it tha

appened to the man he was to travel with. John Blood was only a boy; he would probably put the child's name and her address in the little traveler's pocket, and these would be lost. The child was hardly old enou

hen abruptly she took up her purse, counted out the money in the firelight, and went out the door and down the street in the dusk, and into the post of

?" she demanded. "Idaho," she answered th

ing at the list of names tacked below the dog-eared Christmas Notice. She remembered that she had not yet signed it herself. She asked for a pencil-causi

jointly beneath the bars,-solicitous of his own accuracy,-M

tie his tag