*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78374 ***




  Transcriber’s Note
  Italic text displayed as: _italic_




LITTLE MERRY CHRISTMAS




_By_

WINIFRED ARNOLD


Little Merry Christmas

  Illustrated, 12mo, boards, net 60c.

  From the moment she alights, one wintry night, at the snow-piled
  station of Oatka Center, little Merry Christmas begins to carry
  sunshine and happiness into the frosty homes, and still frostier
  hearts, of its inhabitants. How Lem Perkins, her crusty old uncle,
  together with the entire village, is led into the delectable kingdom
  of Peace and Goodwill by the guiding hand of a child, is here told in
  a sweet and jolly little story.


Mis’ Bassett’s Matrimony Bureau

  Illustrated, 12mo, cloth, net $1.00.

  Si, Ezry and Zekle, Cynthy, Elviny, and Mirandy, with many another
  character whose name suggests the humorous and homely phraseology of
  “way down East,” disport themselves to the “everlastin’” delight of
  the reader.

  “There is a good deal of homely philosophy in Mis’ Bassett’s
  observations expressed in her delightful way.”

    —_Rochester Herald._

[Illustration: “Mr. Perkins found himself fumbling with the buttons on
a small, blue gingham back”

  (See page 18)
]




  LITTLE MERRY
  CHRISTMAS

  By
  WINIFRED ARNOLD
  Author of “Mis’ Bassett’s Matrimony Bureau”

  _ILLUSTRATED_

  [Illustration]

  NEW YORK       CHICAGO       TORONTO
  Fleming H. Revell Company
  LONDON     AND     EDINBURGH




  Copyright, 1913 by
  STREET & SMITH

  Copyright, 1914, by
  FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY

  New York: 158 Fifth Avenue
  Chicago: 125 N. Wabash Ave.
  Toronto: 25 Richmond St., W.
  London: 21 Paternoster Square
  Edinburgh: 100 Princes Street




CONTENTS


     I. THE SURPRISE PACKAGE                                           9

    II. PANCAKES FOR TWO                                              14

   III. THE NEW HOUSEKEEPER                                           23

    IV. HUNTING FOR THE PIE-MAKER                                     31

     V. THE TURNOVER GOES TO SCHOOL                                   43

    VI. MRS. EM. TO THE RESCUE                                        53

   VII. EXIT “OLD GROUCHY GRUFF”                                      61

  VIII. UNCLE LEM’S CHRISTMAS PARTY                                   73

    IX. MERRY CHRISTMAS FINDS THE HAPPY NEW YEAR                      87




ILLUSTRATIONS


  “Mr. Perkins found himself fumbling
  with the buttons on a small, blue
  gingham back”    _Frontispiece_

                               FACING
                               PAGE

  “Where’s the bundle Sim Coles left?”
  he demanded of the group around
  the stove               10

  “How do you do! Does my uncle, Mr.
  Lemuel Perkins, live here?”        14

  “Oh, goody!” she cried. “I was so
  afraid you’d be late, and I didn’t
  want you to miss anything”        78




I

THE SURPRISE PACKAGE


“Here’s a package for you, Hime,” yelled the burly conductor. “Brown,
with a red label on top. I’ll just set it here till you haul down the
mail bags.”

The station-master’s lantern stopped bobbing for a moment.

“All right. Set it down inside,” he shouted, over his shoulder. “Snow’s
so deep to-night I might lose it on the platform.”

The little girl in the brown coat and the hat with the big red bow on
top, giggled delightedly.

“He’ll think it’s lost sure enough,” she said. “’Twould be a fine April
Fool if it wasn’t so near Christmas, wouldn’t it?”

“A-number-one,” agreed the big conductor, appreciatively. “Well,
good-bye, sissy; the train’s moving. Hope you’ll have a fine time.”

“Oh, I shall,” responded the little girl confidently. “I always do.
Good-bye. Oh, look! He’s coming!”

Down the platform bobbed the station-master’s lantern, the centre of a
moving vortex of big, fluffy snowflakes. After the darkness outside,
even the dimly lighted little waiting room seemed dazzling as he
stepped inside, dragging the mail bags behind him.

“Where’s the bundle Sim Coles left?” he demanded of the little group
assembled around the tall, whitewashed stove, slinging his burden at
the feet of the village bus driver, who stood with one foot on the
ledge around the bottom of the stove, while he slapped his wet mittens
against its glowing sides.

“Sim Coles never came in here,” answered a tall man with a black beard.
“He was talkin’ outside with a little gal.”

“Likely he’s hove it into a snowdrift,” grumbled the station-master,
turning back toward the door. “Should think he might uv——”

A little brown figure sprang out of the shadows.

“No, he didn’t,” she contradicted gleefully. “I’m the brown package,
you know, and the bow on my hat is the red label. He said it for a
joke.”

For a moment the group around the stove stared—then they joined in the
merry peal of laughter that was shaking the red label.

[Illustration: “Where’s the bundle Sim Coles left?” he demanded of the
group around the stove]

“So you’re the package, be ye?” inquired the station-master. “Waal,
where are you bound for, sissy? Come on up and let’s read that fancy
tag of yourn.”

The little girl bubbled appreciatively.

“I’ve come to visit my uncle,” she explained. “That is, he’s mother’s
uncle, Mr. Lemuel Perkins.”

“Is Lem expectin’ of you?” inquired the ’bus driver, leisurely picking
up a mail bag from the floor.

“Oh, no. Isn’t it fun? I’m a real Christmas surprise, you know, sent
early, so as not to overload the mail.”

She laughed again.

“Well, I guess you’d better ride along up with me, then. Lem lives just
a little piece beyond the post-office.”

“Oh, goody!” exclaimed the delighted passenger, with a breezy little
rush across the room to the other door. “This will be my second sleigh
ride, and I can drop right down on him out of a snowstorm, just the way
a Christmas surprise ought to. May I sit on the front seat with you,
Mr.—er——”

“Bennett,” supplied that gentleman genially. “Drove the Oatka Centre
’bus ever since there was a deepo to drive to. Say, who was your
mother, sissy? Did she ever live here?”

“Not exactly. Her name was Ellen Rumball, till she married father and
went to India to live. She used to visit Uncle Lemuel and Aunt Nancy,
before Aunt Nancy died.”

“Why, pshaw now! She ain’t the Ellen Rumball that married a missionary
named Christian, is she?”

“Christie,” corrected the small person. “We’re all missionaries, and
live in India. Father and mother and me and the children. Only I’m in
boarding school now—Crescent Hill, you know—the _loveliest_ school! But
scarlet fever broke out, so school closed two weeks early, and the girl
I was going to visit has the fever, so I decided to come right down and
spend Christmas with Uncle Lemuel. Won’t he be surprised?”

The driver peered out through the soft darkness.

“He will that,” he drawled. “Lem ain’t so gol darned used to children
as some.”

The little girl’s laugh tinkled gleefully.

“Oh, I’m not a child,” she explained. “I guess you didn’t see me very
well; the station was so dark. Why, I’m thirteen and a half years old,
and I’ve been grown up for a long time. I had to be, you see, to take
care of the children. Mother had her hands so full with the people and
the schools and father’s meetings and all that. Being a missionary is
the most absorbing work there is,” she ended impressively.

“Oh, I see,” chuckled Mr. Bennett. “Quite an old lady, and a missionary
to boot. That’s lucky, now. Lem’s been lookin’ for a housekeeper
for quite a spell, they say—ever since the Widder Em left him. A
missionary, now, will come in real handy. I’ll drive ye right over
first, and stop to the office on the way back. Can you see that light
down there? That’s Lem’s kitchen. Want I should come in with ye, sissy?”

The little girl pondered for a minute. “No, I believe not,” she
answered. “It would make you seem more like Santa Claus, I think, if
you just dropped me and rode away.”

Mr. Bennett chuckled.

“Mebbe it would, sissy, mebbe it would. I hain’t seen Sandy Claus in
so long that I’ve pretty nigh forgot how he does act. Whoa, there, you
reindeers! Hold on while I drop a Christmas passel down through Lem
Perkins’ chimley. Good-bye now, sissy. Good luck to ye. Giddap thar,
you reindeers! Giddap!”




II

PANCAKES FOR TWO


In the kitchen wing of the old-fashioned brown house an old man was
just beginning to get supper, a choleric old man, if one could judge by
the bushy fierceness of the shaggy eyebrows above the sharp blue eyes,
and the aggressive slant of the gray chin whisker. Mr. Lemuel Perkins
had come in rather late from a particularly heated meeting of the
village debating society, in grocery store assembled, and you will have
to admit that it is not a soothing experience for a hungry man to find
the kitchen in dire confusion, the fire in the cook stove nothing but a
mass of embers, and not a sign of supper in sight unless the attenuated
remains of a solitary dinner answer that description.

[Illustration: “How do you do! Does my uncle, Mr. Lemuel Perkins, live
here?”]

A fire was blazing in the stove now, however; and, girdled in a blue
gingham apron, Mr. Perkins was adding to the general confusion on
the kitchen table by trying to “stir up” something for supper, with
the aid of a “ring-streaked and spotted” recipe book. Intent upon
discovering whether a certain eleven was really eleven or only a one
and a fly speck, Mr. Perkins totally disregarded the sound of “some one
gently tapping, tapping” at his kitchen door, and did not even realize
that it had been pushed open till a brisk young voice inquired:

“How do you do! Does my uncle, Mr. Lemuel Perkins, live here?”

“Huh?” demanded Mr. Perkins, whirling about, recipe book in hand, and
eyeing the intruder fiercely.

But fierce looks can find no entrance through a pair of rose-colored
spectacles that are radiating sunshine and goodwill as hard as ever
they can.

“Oh, you are Uncle Lemuel!” cried a happy little voice, while its owner
rushed headlong across the kitchen with outstretched arms. “I’m so glad
to see you.” With a gay little spring she planted a kiss on the tip of
the bristling chin whisker. “I’m your grandniece, Mary, and I’ve come
to spend Christmas with you for a surprise. Have you had scarlet fever?”

“Huh?” inquired Mr. Perkins again, a trifle less fierce, but much more
bewildered.

“Scarlet fever?” shrieked Mary, deciding at once that of course a
proper great-uncle would be deaf. “Have—you—had—scarlet fever?
I’ve—been exposed!”

“For the land sakes, little gal, quit your yellin’! I ain’t deef,”
retorted Mr. Perkins. “Who’d you say you was?”

“Mary, your niece; but I’m not a little girl. I’m thirteen and a half.
Mother says I’m a real little woman.”

“She does, does she? Waal, we’ll see which on us is right about it. Is
there one cup of flour in pancakes, or eleven? This blamed receipt book
is so messed up I can’t tell.”

“Oh, are you making pancakes?” returned his guest joyfully. “I’m so
glad. I was afraid you’d be through supper, and I’m almost starved. You
wouldn’t let me make the pancakes, would you, Uncle Lemuel? India’s not
a very suitable place for them, mother says, so we never had them much,
but she let me make them once or twice, and I just love to hear them
go splash on the griddle, and then bob up like a rubber ball, and then
flop them over, all brown and lovely. It’s such fun! But probably you
love to make them, too. I oughtn’t to ask the first night, I suppose.”

Uncle Lemuel’s visage, being trained to express habitual displeasure,
had no difficulty in concealing the feelings of joy that coursed
through him at these words. As he himself would have expressed it, he
“hated like dumb p’ison to cook a meal of vittles,” but it was against
Uncle Lemuel’s principles to display satisfaction with the happenings
of the world about him.

“Well,” he responded slowly, “if you’re so set on it, I s’pose you
might as well. Only don’t be wasteful now, and stir up a mess we can’t
eat.”

He handed over the recipe book with a grudging air that would have
deceived the very elect.

“I won’t,” promised his guest happily, whisking off her coat with one
hand and her hat with the other, and finally finding a satisfactory
place for them on a remote rocking-chair covered with red calico. “What
fun, starting in housekeeping with you right away like this! And such
a grand fire! Will you set the table, and have you got some real maple
sirup? I don’t think they have at school, but mother said you and
Aunt Nancy got it right from your own trees. Do you keep them in the
back yard, and go out, and draw some when you want it, as if you were
milking a cow?”

She was diving into her russet leather handbag as she spoke, and
presently she pulled out a blue gingham apron with triumphant glee.

“Here’s my big kitchen apron. Isn’t it the luckiest thing that I
brought it in my handbag? I didn’t have a chance to wear it at school,
so I left it out of my trunk, and then I ran across it at the last
minute, and tucked it in here. Everything does turn out so grandly!
Why, see, our aprons match! How funny! We’re twins, aren’t we? Will you
button me up in the back, please, and then I’ll tie yours again. Yours
is slipping off.”

In another moment the dazed Mr. Perkins found himself fumbling with the
buttons on a small blue gingham back; and then, before he could even
think of the first letter of Jack Robinson’s name, a capable hand had
tightened his own apron strings, and transported by two active little
feet was marshalling the various “ingrejunts” that he had already
gathered together on the kitchen table.

Muttering something about maple sirup, he retreated to the cellar to
collect his wits, though he knew full well that the sirup can, since
time immemorial, had occupied the right-hand end of the top “butt’ry”
shelf.

By the time he returned the culinary operations had been transferred to
the sink bench, and the kitchen table was laid for two. On the stove a
shining griddle was smoking in anticipation, while the little cook was
giving a last anxious whip to the batter.

“I couldn’t find the napkins, Uncle Lemuel,” she called, as the
cellarway door opened. “Will you get them out, please, and put the
butter and sirup on the table? Oh, I do _pray_ these cakes will be
good! It’s such a responsibility to cook for a grown-up man!”

A silence, heavy with the deepest anxiety, settled almost visibly over
the Perkins kitchen from the first slap of the batter upon the smoking
griddle, till three cakes had been duly “flopped” by the little cook’s
careful hand. These, however, presented to view such beautiful, round,
creamy countenances, almost obscured by very becoming brown lace veils,
that two huge sighs of relief exhaled together; one of which was
speedily transformed into a dry little cough, while Uncle Lemuel turned
and tiptoed away in search of the tea caddy and the old brown pot.

“As soon as we get six, we can sit down and begin,” called Mary
excitedly. “The stove’s so handy I can cook and eat, too. That’s such
a nice thing about eating in the kitchen. We could never do that in
India, there were always too many servants around, though mother tried
to keep it as much like an American home as she could. That’s why she
taught me to cook—so we could have American dishes.”

“Can you make pie?” queried Uncle Lemuel, through a mouthful so
dripping with maple sirup that even his tones seemed sweetened.

“No, I can’t,” admitted Mary regretfully. “Father didn’t think pie was
good for us, so mother never tried to manage that.”

All traces of sirup departed abruptly from Uncle Lemuel’s tones.

“Good for ye?” he growled. “Well, if that ain’t just like some folkses
impudence! Good for ye? Humph! Mebbe if I hadn’t et it three times a
day I mightn’t have had no more sprawl than to go out to Injy and lay
round under a green cotton umbrell’ with a black feller fannin’ the
flies off of me. Why, it’s eatin’ pie reg’lar that’s put the United
States ahead of all the other nations of the world! It’s the bulwark of
the American Constitution, pie is.”

Mary gazed at him with wide and interested eyes. Her mental picture
of her own overworked father was so many leagues away from the vision
under the green cotton umbrella that, far from resenting Uncle Lemuel’s
thrust, she never even recognized it.

“Do you think maybe that’s the matter with our constitutions?” she
inquired eagerly. “I had to come over to school because I wasn’t well,
and father isn’t a bit strong, either. Mother thought it was the
climate.”

Uncle Lem’s growl struggled through another mouthful of sirup.

“Climate! Huh! A man that eats strengthenin’ food enough can stand up
against any climate the Almighty ever made. I’ve felt sorter pindlin’
myself since I hain’t had my pie reg’lar, an’ the climate or Oatka
Centre is the same as ever, hain’t it?”

Even the intellect of a missionary as old as thirteen and a half is
forced to bow before such logic as that.

“Then I must learn how to make pie straight away,” announced Mary
solemnly. “Could you teach me, Uncle Lemuel?”

Uncle Lemuel shook his head.

“It takes womenfolks to make pies,” he admitted grudgingly. “I hain’t
had a decent pie in the house since the Widder Em left here.”

“Did she make good ones?” inquired Mary sympathetically.

Uncle Lemuel was almost torn in twain between his natural tendency
toward disparagement and the soothing effects of the innumerable
procession of well-browned griddle cakes that had come his way.

“There is folks,” he compromised, “that thinks she was a master-hand at
it. Some say the best in the village. I’ve et worse myself.”

“It’s too bad she moved away,” sighed Mary; “but I guess we can find
somebody else. Mother said the people in Oatka Centre were the kindest
in the world, and of course they’d do it for you, anyhow.”

A touch of a smile twitched at one corner of the old man’s mouth.

“Oh, yes,” he assented, with grim humour. “Any durned one of ’em would
do anythin’ under the canopy for me.”

“That’s because you’d do anything under the canopy for them,” agreed
the little girl. “Kind people always find other people kind, mother
says. I do wish I could do something for you myself, you’re such a nice
uncle, but I’m getting so sleepy I can’t think of a thing. If you’re
through, we’d better wash the dishes quickly, else I might,” she ended,
with a sleepy little giggle, “tumble—splash—into the dishpan.”




III

THE NEW HOUSEKEEPER


It was still dark when a resounding thump on the door of the “parlour
bedroom” wakened the unconscious little missionary, who had plumped
into the exact centre of its feather bed the night before, and had
never stirred since.

“Be ye goin’ to sleep all day?” growled a voice outside.

The little brown head bounced out of its pillow like a jack-in-a-box.

“Goodness, no!” answered its owner, in a startled voice. “I didn’t know
it was daytime. Why, I meant to help you get breakfast! Is it too late?”

“I s’pose I can wait, if you’re set on makin’ some more pancakes,”
responded Uncle Lemuel craftily. “But you’d better flax around pretty
spry. I’ll get the griddle het up.”

The air of that “parlour bedroom” was certainly conducive to spry
“flaxing” if you didn’t want to congeal in a half-dressed condition,
and by the time the griddle was well “het,” the new cook appeared on
the scene.

“Good morning, Uncle Lemuel!” she cried gaily, whisking across the
kitchen and planting a swift little kiss upon that gentleman’s amazed
countenance before she whirled about and presented her blue gingham
back to be buttoned. “You certainly are the nicest man in the world to
wait so I could cook, and I have planned a perfectly grand surprise for
you, too. We’re going to have the jolliest Christmas together that ever
was. Is the coffee made yet?”

“Who told you to come here for Christmas?” demanded Mr. Perkins, as he
began on his second plate of pancakes.

“Nobody at all,” bubbled his guest gleefully. “That’s the joke of
it. It’s a perfect surprise all around. I was going home with Patty
Stanwood, you know, because her mother and mine used to be school
friends. And then Patty had scarlet fever, and her mother was afraid of
me on account of the baby. So then I remembered what fine times mother
used to have here when she was a girl, and I knew this would be just
the ideal place to spend Christmas. You know, I’ve never seen a real
snowy American Christmas before in my life, and I’m just wild about
it. The girls at school call me ‘Merry Christmas,’ instead of ‘Mary
Christie,’ because I talk so much about it, and I _love_ it for a name!
Aren’t you just crazy about Christmas, Uncle Lemuel?”

Crazy about Christmas? Yes, indeed, little Merry! Why, it was only the
afternoon before, Job Simpkins, of the village “Emporium,” would have
told you, that “Lem Perkins had bellered and tore around as if the very
name of Christmas was a red flannin rag waved in front of a bull.”

But when he looked into the shining young eyes before him, even Uncle
Lemuel’s frenzy couldn’t fail to be a trifle abated.

“I hain’t much use for it—late years,” he answered gruffly. “Folks make
such tarnation fools of themselves.”

“Oh, you are a Christmas reformer,” translated his little guest
blithely. “Lots of people are in America, they say. Maybe you are a
Spug. Are you a Spug, Uncle Lemuel?”

“No, siree, Republican and Hardshell Baptist, same as I’ve always been.
The old ways is good enough for me. What’s Spug, I’d like to know?”

Mary clapped her hands.

“I’m so glad!” she cried gleefully. “It’s a society to make you give
useful Christmas presents to people, and I’ve had useful ones all my
life—being a missionary family with five children, of course we had
to. But I’d rather join a society to prevent them myself, for I like
useless ones lots better. Don’t you? I’ve been hoping awfully that
somebody would give me a string of red beads or a set of pink hair
ribbons. Oh, I didn’t mean that for a hint! Do excuse me, Uncle Lemuel!
Of course, I’ll like best whatever you choose. How big a turkey do you
usually buy?” she ended hastily.

“Don’t buy none,” grunted Uncle Lemuel, with his nose in his coffee cup.

“Why, of course not! You raise them yourself, don’t you? I _am_ a
goose,” she laughed. “Besides, people always invite you when you live
alone. I hope they won’t this year. It would be such fun to have a
Christmas party of our own, wouldn’t it, right here in this kitchen?
Who do you want to invite? I must go right out and get acquainted, so
I’ll have some friends of my own to ask. It’s only two weeks off, but
you can make a lot of friends in two weeks, can’t you, if you go about
it the right way? See what friends we’ve got to be already!”

“The science of self-expression” was quite unknown when Uncle Lemuel
went to district school, but it would have demanded a full dramatic
course adequately to cope with the torrent of varying emotions that was
surging through the time-worn channels of his consciousness. Surprise,
disgust, amusement, wonder, disapproval, horror, and a wee touch of
pleasure tumbled over one another in rapid succession.

And some way the wee touch of pleasure in the child’s innocent
friendliness and liking soared high enough on top of the flood to
soften the hard old mouth for a little and keep back for the nonce the
bitter words that would shatter her Christmas air castles to fragments.
Nobody had really liked Lemuel Perkins in so many years that he
couldn’t be blamed for enjoying the sensation, though he felt as queer
as must an ice-bound stream when the first little trickle of water
creeps warmly through its breast.

“Want I should help ye with the dishes?” he inquired almost kindly.
“I’ve got to go over to town of an errand after a spell.”

“Oh, have you got time? I’m so glad! Do you know, that’s the funny
thing about dishes? If you do them alone, they are the worst old job
that ever was, but when somebody nice wipes for you, they’re just fun.
Mother says it’s that way with most kinds of work. Could you stay long
enough to help sort things out a little, too? For a man, of course,
you’re a very nice housekeeper—you ought to see father!—but with two of
us around we may need a little more room, don’t you think so?”

Fortunately there was no one at hand to reveal the fact that, no longer
ago than two hours, Mr. Lemuel Perkins had stated firmly to the kitchen
stove that “folks that walked in on you unasked and unwanted should at
least pay for their vittles by doing all the housework.” Kitchen stoves
do not taunt you with changing your mind, so Uncle Lemuel was not
hampered by the fear that has kept many a better man from improving on
himself.

By half-past nine the Perkins kitchen shone resplendent in the morning
sunshine with a brightness reminiscent of the days when Aunt Nancy had
boasted proudly that her kitchen was the pleasantest room in the house.

Uncle Lemuel would really have liked to sit down and enjoy its sunny
neatness for a while, but an irresistible impulse had begun tugging at
his cowhide boots, and Uncle Lemuel had no choice but to set them at
once on the path to the post-office. For nine o’clock is “mail time”
in Oatka Centre, and either totally unsocial or completely bedridden
are the menfolks who fail to forgather on a fine winter morning in the
ever-exciting pursuit of the letter that never comes.

“I’m goin’ over to the office, and to get the meat,” he announced,
pulling his old cap down over his ears.

“Oh, I hope you’ll get me a letter!” cried Mary. “I never feel
perfectly at home in a new place till I begin to get mail. Do you know
the post-master, Uncle Lemuel?”

“Know Marthy Ann Watkins?” jeered Uncle Lemuel. “Knowed her since she
was knee high to a grasshopper. And, moreover, if there’s a man, woman,
or child in this township that don’t know Marthy Ann, it ain’t her
fault; you can bet your bottom dollar on that. Keepin’ track of folks
is her business. Prob’ly knows what we et for breakfast by this time.”

Mary’s laughter bubbled out merrily. “Goodness me, Uncle Lemuel! Then
she knows that I haven’t written to mother yet, to tell her where I
am. So I’d better do it right away. Maybe I’ll see you over at the
post-office by-and-by. Have you any special messages for mother and
father, or shall I just send your love?”

Uncle Lemuel was engaged in hauling his old cap still farther over his
ears, and apparently he did not hear this amazing question, for he
emitted no sounds but another grunt before the door slammed behind him.

“He _is_ deaf,” decided his little guest innocently; “but I mustn’t
make him see that I notice it by asking over. Deaf people are so
sensitive. Love will do this time, anyway.”




IV

HUNTING FOR THE PIE-MAKER


It was nearly ten o’clock when Mary pushed open the door of the
post-office and stepped in. Not a soul was in sight, so she tiptoed
over to the little window framed in boxes.

“Are you Miss Martha Watkins?” she inquired cheerfully.

“Mercy land!” ejaculated a thin lady inside, quitting at one bound her
creaky rocking-chair and her enthralling occupation of sorting picture
postcards. “Who be you, child, and whose mail do you want?”

“My own, if there is any—Mary Christie’s—but I guess there isn’t, for
I only got here last night. I really came to mail my letter to mother,
and get acquainted with you. My uncle said you were the friendliest
lady in town, and I’m looking for friends, myself.”

“Who’s your uncle?” inquired Miss Watkins.

“Mr. Lemuel Perkins, a very old friend of yours. Isn’t he nice?”

Miss Marthy overlooked the last question.

“And what did Lem Perkins say about me, did you say?” she demanded.

Mary knitted her brows.

“He said,” she repeated slowly, “that you—that you—oh, I know!—that you
tried to be friends with everybody in town, and it wasn’t your fault if
you weren’t. And I needed some help right away, so of course I came to
you.”

Miss Watkins struggled not to look as pleased as she felt.

“Now, who in tunket would uv thought that of Lem Perkins?” she
marvelled. “Well, he hit the nail on the head anyways. I do love to be
friendly with folks, that’s certain. What can I do for you, sissy?”

“Can you tell me who’s the best pie-maker in town, since uncle’s
housekeeper moved away? It’s such a shame she’s gone, for I want to
learn right off for a surprise for uncle.”

“She that was the Widder Em Cottle, do you mean? Mis’ Caldwell that is?”

Mary hesitated.

“Uncle said the Widow Em. Is she Mrs. Caldwell, too? He said people
thought she was the best pie-maker in town. Is that the one?”

Miss Watkins stared.

“Lem Perkins has certainly met a change of heart!” she ejaculated.
“What made you think she’d moved away? She lives in that white house
just beyond your uncle’s. I’ll bet he never told you the whole story,
did he?”

She leaned forward eagerly.

But Mary was absorbed in her joy over the happy turn of affairs.

“Oh, goody, goody!” she exclaimed gleefully. “Why, I must have
misunderstood uncle some way. Isn’t that glorious? Now I can run right
up there, and maybe she’ll teach me before dinner. Oh, thank you so
much, Miss Watkins. You are a real friend, just as uncle said. I’m
going to come down this afternoon and get your help about Christmas,
too. Good-bye.”

Right outside the door she encountered Mr. Bennett, the ’bus driver,
returning from a leisurely trip to the “ten o’clock.”

“Well, if here ain’t the lady missionary!” he called cheerfully. “Where
ye goin’ so fast this fine morning? Huntin’ heathen?”

Mary giggled.

“No,” she returned merrily. “Going to hunt for a missionary myself—Mrs.
Caldwell, that was uncle’s housekeeper.”

“Jump in, then, and I’ll give ye a lift. I have to go right by the
door, to carry some feed to Elder Smith’s.”

“Oh, goody!” cried Mary again, bobbing up on the front seat with one
spring. “Another sleigh ride! And now, if uncle’s got home, he won’t
see me go by.”

“Has Lem done anythin’ to scare ye?” demanded Mr. Bennett, suddenly
dropping his joking manner.

“Mercy me, no!” answered Mary gaily. “Some people might be scared of
that growly way he has, I suppose; but when you know how awfully nice
he really is that only adds to the fun. I’m going now to learn how to
make pies for him for a surprise. Isn’t it fine she’s so handy to our
house? She’s the best pie-maker in town, uncle says.”

“You certainly are the beatin’est young one I’ve seen in a month of
Sundays. Beg pardon, ma’am! I mean beatin’est lady missionary, o’
course. I seen your uncle, though, over to the blacksmith’s shop, so
he won’t be poppin’ out and sp’ilin’ your surprise. Here we be to the
Widder Em’s now. I’ll step in later to get some of the pies.”

“Do,” returned Mary cordially. “I’ll let you know as soon as I can make
some real good ones, and then I’ll give you all you can eat. Uncle will
love to have you.”

“Much obleeged,” chuckled Mr. Bennett. “I guess I had better drop in
and get acquainted with that uncle of yourn, too. He sounds kind of
furrin to me.”

Just then the side door flew open, and a fresh-looking woman in a red
calico dress stepped out.

“Hello, Mr. Bennett,” she called. “Got anythin’ for me this morning?”

“Why, yes,” returned Mr. Bennett jocosely. “A Christmas present of
an A-number-one missionary. She’s a-visitin’ her uncle, Mr. Lemuel
Perkins; and now she’s got him converted she’s run over to neighbour
with you for a spell. She’ll cure you of any heathen idees you’ve got,
Em, quicker’n scat.”

Mary turned to shake her finger at Mr. Bennett, and then ran down the
path.

“Isn’t he funny?” she laughed merrily. “Anybody’d think Uncle Lemuel
was a heathen instead of the nicest uncle that ever was, wouldn’t they?
But you know better. You’ve lived at his house. That’s why I came
over. He says that he hasn’t had a decent piece of pie since you left.
I guess you spoiled other people’s pies for him, for he says you are
the very best pie-maker in town. So I came over to see if you wouldn’t
teach me how. He’s been such a dear to me since I came that I do want
to pay it back somehow—only, of course, you never can exactly.”

Surprise and pleasure struggled in Mrs. Caldwell’s countenance, as she
led the way into her immaculate kitchen.

“Why, I didn’t know ’t Lem relished my pies so well,” she said
deprecatingly. “I don’t lay out to be no great of a cook. Why, yes, of
course I’ll teach you. ’Taint no knack.”

“Oh, thank you!” cried her little guest, bounding out of the
rocking-chair in which she had just seated herself. “Could you do it
to-day, do you think? Uncle says he’s been ‘real pindling’ since you
left, and he thinks it’s on account of the pies.”

“You don’t say!” ejaculated her hostess. “Lem must ’a’ been feelin’
sorry for some of the things he said. I’m afeared there ain’t time to
teach ye much afore noon, but I’ve got some fresh-baked pies handy.
I’ll give ye one to take home with ye for dinner. You can come back
this afternoon and learn how yourself.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry!” explained Mary. “You see, I really ought to do my
Christmas shopping this afternoon. My family live so far away that they
won’t get their presents now till awfully late, but I couldn’t before
on account of the sickness at school. Where’s the best store in the
village?”

“There ain’t but two,” laughed Mrs. Caldwell, “and I guess it’s which
and t’other between ’em. They’ve both got in a pretty good stock this
year. You’d better go to Job Simpson’s, I guess. Lem does his tradin’
there now.”

“Mother sent me five dollars,” announced her guest proudly. “I think,
with all of that to spend, I’d better divide it between the two. Don’t
you think it would be fairer? It might hurt the other man’s feelings
if I didn’t buy anything of him, and mother says you mustn’t ever hurt
people’s feelings if you can help it. What do you think Uncle Lemuel
would like best? It’s hard to choose for a man—even father. What did
you usually give him when you lived there?”

When a man grudgingly pays you only two dollars and a half a week for
doing all of his housework, and making the kitchen garden besides, it
is not very surprising that your Christmas presents to him have been
few and far between, but under the glance of the shining eyes before
her, the late “Widder Em” suddenly hesitated to explain that fact.

“Why, I dunno,” she stammered. “I—I—why don’t you give him a coffee
cup? I’ll show you one I got for the deacon. It says ‘Merry Christmas’
on it in red.”

“Oh, oh!” cried the other Merry Christmas, gazing in an ecstasy of
admiration. “It’ll be just the thing for me to give uncle, won’t it? If
it only said ‘From,’ now! Oh, I didn’t tell you about my name, did I?
Well, I must.”

And forthwith, away she pranced on her holly-wreathed hobby, till the
woman, too, harked back in fancy to the days when “Christmas” was a
name of magic, and launched forth into eager reminiscences of her
childhood revels, while her visitor listened, entranced.

All at once she tore her gaze from the shining eyes before her.

“Mercy me, child!” she cried suddenly. “And here I was goin’ to have
veal potpie for dinner, and the deacon’ll be as mad as a hatter if his
vittles ain’t ready on the stroke!” She stopped and kissed the glowing
face. “Couldn’t you stay, little Merry Christmas?” she asked softly.

“I wish I could!” cried Mary. “I’d love to! But you see I’m
housekeeping for uncle, so I have to go right away. He’d be so
disappointed if I wasn’t there. I’ll come some time with him, pretty
soon.”

“‘Peace on earth, good will to men,’” quoted Mrs. Caldwell softly.
“Then good-bye, little Christmas girl. Here’s another pie for you,
dearie—mince. Lem was always partial to mince.”

“Oh, thank you _so_ much!” cried Mary in delight. “Uncle will be
awfully pleased. He certainly has the nicest friends in the world.
Good-bye, you dear Mrs. Caldwell. I must run and get things started.”

It was quarter to twelve when Uncle Lemuel stamped up the snowy path
to the kitchen door and flung it open. On the stove a steaming kettle
was bubbling merrily. On the table “covers were laid,” as the society
column has it, for two. Certainly a pleasant sight for a hungry man who
had been cooking his own dinners and setting his own table—if setting
it could be called—for two dreary years. But, strangely enough, Uncle
Lemuel’s gaze turned unsatisfied from the attractive table, and even
rested coldly upon the bubbling pot.

“What’s become of that gal?” he growled to himself, dexterously kicking
the door shut behind him.

A little blue gingham catapult dashed out from the departing shelter,
and flung herself at his back, while two little hands made futile
attempts to reach far enough to cover his eyes.

“Here I am!” cried a gay voice behind him. “Merry Christmas! Are you
Mr. Santa Claus? I hope you’ve got some meat in your pack for me. I’m
nearly starved, honest! I’ve got the potatoes and turnips on, the way
you told me. Do you hear them? Oh, it’s sausage! Goody! I love sausage!
And what do you think? I’ve got the nicest surprise for you, too. You’d
better cook the sausage, though, for I can’t do it very well. And I
will make the tea.”

Uncle Lem grunted almost as gruffly as ever in response, but, between
you and me, that was just because he was trying so hard not to reveal
the little thrills of pleasure that were warming the cockles of his
hard old heart. And the best joke of all was that he never guessed that
the softened glance of his sharp blue eyes and the gentler lines around
his grim old mouth were betraying him as fast as ever they could.

Mary bobbed hither and yon, trying the potatoes and relieving them of
their brown jackets, preparing the turnips under directions, and making
the tea in a most housewifely manner. Finally, she settled down into
her place at the head of the table with a sigh of absolute content.

“How do you take your tea, Mr. Perkins?” she inquired in the most
elegant of society tones; then, suddenly resuming her own: “You don’t
know what fun it is, Uncle Lemuel,” she cried, “to be the real lady of
the house, and ask about the tea, and say, ‘Let me help you to a little
more sauce,’ or, ‘Which kind of pie will you have, mince or apple?’
Goodness, I almost gave it away then! And oh, uncle, I can’t keep my
surprise a minute longer—honest I can’t!”

She sprang up from the table and into the pantry, whence she emerged
immediately with a beaming face and a pie balanced upon either hand.

“Which will you have, Mr. Perkins, apple or mince?” she inquired
gleefully, bobbing a little curtsy to the imminent peril of the pies.
“Your constitution won’t have to feel ‘pindling’ any longer, for here
are two fine, large ones—enough to last several meals, I guess. Mrs.
Caldwell sent them to you, with her compliments. She said you liked
mince particularly, but I like apple just as well, so we can play Jack
Spratt and his wife. People in Oatka Centre are just _lovely_, aren’t
they? It’s because I’m your niece, of course, so far, but I hope by and
by they’ll like me for my own sake.”

As she that was the Widder Em and Mr. Perkins had not spoken to each
other since they had parted with mutual recriminations two years
before, it is not to be wondered at that that gentleman laid down his
knife and fork, and stared in open bewilderment.

“Em Cottle sent them pies to me?” he demanded. “To _me_? How in thunder
did she happen to do that?”

“Why, because she liked you, of course,” explained Mary simply. “That’s
why everybody gives each other things. That’s what Christmas is for
especially, mother says—to give you a good chance to show other people
that you love them—just the way God showed us when He gave us the
little Baby Jesus.”

And once again something—was it the dear gift that she had
mentioned?—kept back the sharp words that were hovering upon the old
man’s lips.




V

THE TURNOVER GOES TO SCHOOL


In Uncle Lemuel’s able dissertation upon the virtues of pie, that
bulwark of the American Constitution, he neglected to mention one of
its most remarkable features—namely, its effect upon the flow of the
milk of human kindness. Nothing else certainly could explain the fact
that when the dishes were finished the next morning he stamped down
the cellar stairs and returned presently with a basket of juicy winter
pears, which he plumped down upon the kitchen table.

In a voice that was “growlier” than ever, he said:

“If you’re goin’ over to the Widder Em’s any time again, you might as
well carry this mess of pears along. Old man Caldwell never did have
gumption enough to raise winter pears, and Em was always partial to
’em. You mustn’t never let yourself be beholden to folks.”

Mary clapped her hands.

“How lovely to have a whole cellar full of things to give away! It must
make you feel like Santa Claus, and I’m the Merry Christmas that goes
with them. And, oh, won’t Mrs. Caldwell be pleased!”

But pleasure was far from Mrs. Caldwell’s predominating emotion when
Merry Christmas presented the basket some fifteen minutes later, with
the polite addition that it was “with Uncle Lem’s love and thanks.”

“For the land sakes alive!” ejaculated the one-time Widow Em, almost
letting the gift fall in her amazement. “Is Lem Perkins experiencin’
religion in his old age?”

Mary looked a little puzzled by the irrelevance of the question.

“Why, yes, I guess so,” she answered happily. “Mother says really good
people experience it all their lives. And we’re experiencing Christmas,
too. Isn’t it the best fun? We’ve begun a list of our Christmas
presents, and I put down your pies at the head—apple for me and mince
for Uncle Lem. Is it quite convenient for you to teach me this morning?”

“Yes, indeed, sissy; yes, indeed,” returned Mrs. Caldwell, recovering
herself. “I’ve got the dishes of fillin’ all ready, and we can begin
right away. There ain’t no knack to it but the know-how. Don’t you
know folks always say ‘easy as pie’?”

“Why, so they do!” agreed Mary joyfully. “But I thought that meant easy
as eating pie. I never knew how easy that was till yesterday. You see,
father didn’t think they were good for us—and I suppose Indian ones
wouldn’t have been,” she added loyally. “But you ought to have seen
Uncle Lem and me yesterday! The pies were so good that we just ate and
ate, apple and mince turn about, till we had all we could do to save
enough for breakfast. And I do feel perfectly fine this morning—and so
does uncle. I guess our constitutions needed it. Could I learn to make
three this morning—one for each meal?”

Under Mrs. Caldwell’s capable direction, the lesson progressed finely,
and in due time three fragrant pies and a turnover were cooling upon
the kitchen sink bench—pies that for brown flakiness of crust and
general comeliness of aspect would not have disgraced the champion of
the county fair herself.

“They look lovely, don’t they?” inquired their creator anxiously. “But,
oh, I can hardly wait till dinner time to see how they taste! Oh, Mrs.
Caldwell, how shall I ever _bear_ it if they aren’t really good and
Uncle Lemuel is disappointed?”

“There, there, now, don’t you fret!” soothed kindly Mrs. Caldwell. “Lem
don’t always say things out same as some do, but I’ll bet a cooky he’ll
think them pies is as good as any he ever et in his life.”

“Oh, I do _pray_ that they’ll be good!” ejaculated the little cook
fervently. “It’s such a responsibility cooking for men, isn’t it?
But I like it,” she added naïvely, “even though I’m scared. Can’t I
_possibly_ tell about them before dinner time?”

Mrs. Caldwell considered.

“Well, yes,” she admitted. “If you want to do some extra Christmassin’
this mornin’, I can think up a job for ye. The schoolmarm, Miss Porter,
boarded with me last winter, and she was real partial to a hot turnover
for her mornin’ recess. If you want to give her yourn, the schoolhouse
is only a piece up the road, and if you run tight as you can lick it, I
guess you can get there before the bell rings. I’ll just tie my cloud
over your head, so you can run faster.”

Ten minutes later a breathless little figure, in a red “cloud,” dashed
up to the door of the old stone schoolhouse, just as the joyous
pandemonium of recess broke out. Knocking seemed quite a superfluous
refinement in the midst of all that babel, so she lifted the great
latch, and then was nearly capsized by a flying wedge of small boys
who came hurtling out to the accompaniment of a long-pent-up explosion
of war-whoops. The point of the wedge stopped and surveyed the reeling,
small figure with the natural defiance of the guilty party.

“What d’you git in my way for?” he demanded gruffly.

To his surprise his victim merely giggled.

“Did you think I was a turnover too?” she inquired. “Because I’m not.
This is it, and it’s been turned once already. Where’s the teacher?”

“Goin’ to tell on us?” inquired another boy sulkily.

Mary stared.

“Tell what?” she inquired. “’Twasn’t your fault. I got in the way. I
hope you didn’t smash the turnover, though,” she added anxiously. “I’m
carrying it to the teacher. No, it’s all right, thank goodness! Doesn’t
it look fine?” she inquired, pulling the covering quite away from her
prize.

The little boys crowded closer.

“And _smell_!” cried the first one admiringly. “Where’d you get it?”

“I made it myself,” returned Mary, with pardonable pride.

“Did you, honest?” he queried, with the natural admiration of the
normal male for a good cook. “Say, fellers, let’s play school. I’ll be
teacher.”

Mary laughed appreciatively, and then her face sobered. Nobody with
a sisterly heart in her bosom could have looked unmoved upon those
appealing eyes, alight with the eternal hunger of boyhood—and Mary was
sister to four little Christies at home.

“If I possibly can—and these are good—I’ll bring you a whole pie
to-morrow,” she promised rashly. “Now I must hurry up to the real
teacher, honest.”

Miss Porter had just finished opening the windows, and was walking
briskly back and forth across the end of the room when Mary approached.

“Good morning,” she said, in a politely puzzled voice. “Are you a new
scholar? Did you want to see me?”

“I wish I _could_ come to school,” returned Mary promptly, “but I’m
just Merry Christmas here on a visit, so I can’t. But I’ve got a
present for you. It’s a turnover. I made it, but Mrs. Caldwell sent
it. Will you eat it right now, please, and tell me how it tastes? I’m
worried to death.”

“Thank you so much,” cried Miss Porter, laughing. “We’ll eat it
together, then. I’m sure it’s delicious, but that’s the best way to
prove it to you. And there’s Nora O’Neil. I don’t think she brought any
lunch, so we’ll give her some. And then if we all agree that it’s good,
it must be fine, mustn’t it?”

In two minutes they were all munching happily together on the flaky
triangle, which Miss Porter and Nora O’Neil praised till the blushing
cook felt that they appreciated her masterpiece at almost its true
value.

By this time other little girls, nibbling at their own pies and cakes
and doughnuts, had begun crowding shyly around to stare at the newcomer.

“These are my little girls,” announced Miss Porter affectionately,
nodding to a few of the more timid ones to come closer. “And who do you
suppose this is who has come to see us to-day? Merry Christmas! What do
you think of that? She was visiting dear Mrs. Caldwell up the road, so
she lived up to her name and brought me a nice hot turnover for lunch.”

The little girls stared.

“Merry Christmas?” they whispered to one another. “Do you s’pose? Is
she—_real_?”

Mary’s sharp ears caught the whispers.

“My true-for-a-fact name is Mary Christie,” she explained merrily, “but
they call me Merry Christmas at school because I’m so crazy about
snow, and Christmas trees, and Santa Claus, and everything. Aren’t you?”

Several little girls nodded eagerly, then a sudden gloom seemed to
settle down upon them.

“Might be,” hazarded one.

“Why, what’s the matter?” inquired Mary, with quick sympathy.

The plague of dumbness lifted all at once.

“We was going to have a tree,” began one.

“And a party,” interrupted another.

“On Christmas Eve.”

“Here to the schoolhouse.”

“And give presents.”

“And popcorn, and candy, and everything.”

“It was all planned out, and the trustees had almost promised.”

They took the sentences out of one another’s mouth.

“And old Grouchy Gruff heard of it.”

Miss Porter’s gentle correction passed unheeded.

“Old Grouchy Gruff heard of it, and said he paid most taxes, and he
wouldn’t let ’em.”

“Said ’twas a waste of fire and lights.”

“Mean old thing!”

“And my father said he’d give the wood.”

“And mine the oil.”

“And then he wouldn’t let ’em use the schoolhouse.”

“’Cause he hates Christmas!”

“I hate _him_!”

“Mean old thing!”

“Children, children!” chided Miss Porter. “You mustn’t talk that way.
I’ll have to ring the bell. We’re late already. Won’t you stay and
visit us a little while, Merry Christmas?”

But Merry Christmas shook her head.

“I can’t just now,” she answered gravely. “Maybe I will this afternoon.
Good-bye!”

The little boys stared in amazement at the quiet little figure that
slipped past them with only a perfunctory response to their friendly
grins.

“What’d teacher do to ye?” demanded Jimmy Harrison, the one-time front
of the flying wedge. “Shall I plug her in the eye with a spitball for
ye? I can do it,” he added darkly.

Merry Christmas came to herself.

“Oh, no, don’t! She’s awfully nice,” she whispered anxiously. “It’s
something else—about Christmas,” she added. “The teacher didn’t do it.”

For poor Merry Christmas was struggling with a paralyzing glimpse of
human perfidy, and her rose-coloured spectacles were searching in vain
for a sunny spot to relieve the awful gloom. Could Christian America
shelter such an ogre—a man who hated Christmas so that he was going to
prevent a party and a tree—and popcorn—and presents—on Christmas Eve
itself? And did that man live in Oatka Centre—the very warmest corner
in the heart of that same Christian America? It was so incredible that
the rose-coloured spectacles began to see a ray of hope in that very
fact.

“Why, he’d be worse than a heathen!” she murmured. “And of course there
aren’t any heathen in America, where everybody knows about Christ and
His birthday. There’s some mistake, that’s all; and I’ll get uncle to
fix it right.”




VI

MRS. EM. TO THE RESCUE


It was over two years now since the Widow Em Cottle had left Lemuel
Perkins’ house in a rage at some last straw of household tyranny, and
then had widened the breach to a chasm by marrying his hereditary enemy
and neighbour, Deacon Caldwell. In all that time the chasm had never
been bridged by one friendly word, and never, both had declared, would
they utter a syllable to each other, if it were to save their lives.

Fortunately, human beings are rarely as bad or as foolish as their own
rash vows; and when Mrs. Emma Caldwell stepped out of the Emporium that
morning and ran into Lem Perkins, unmistakably headed for home and
dinner, she recognized a “leadin’ plain as the nose on her face,” as
she afterward explained to the deacon. And Mrs. Caldwell was far too
good a woman to disobey a “leading.”

“Mornin’, Lem,” she began boldly, casting the usual polite fly upon the
conversational waters. “Much obliged for the pears. They was as tasty
as yours always is.”

Mr. Perkins nodded.

“The little gal wanted I should send ’em,” he explained gruffly. “She’s
a great hand for neighbourin’, sissy is.”

The bull having turned his forehead in her direction, Mrs. Caldwell
promptly seized him by the horns.

“It’s her I want to talk about,” she announced. “She’s a takin’ young
one as I’ve seen in a month o’ Sundays, but blind as a bat—or an
angel,” she added softly. “Land only knows how she’s managed it, but
she’s took all sorts of a shine to her ‘dear Uncle Lemuel,’ as she
calls you—thinks you’re the salt of the earth—and good—and kind. Law
me, Lem, if you could hear her talk, you’d go home and look in the
glass, and say: ‘Mercy me, who be I, anyway?’”

“Waal,” grunted “dear Uncle Lemuel,” turning aside to hide the pleased
smile that would twitch at the corners of his mouth in spite of his
strenuous efforts, “what’s to hender, Mis’ Caldwell? Blood is thicker’n
water—ain’t it?”

“Yourn hain’t,” retorted Mrs. Caldwell promptly. “It’s hern that’s got
to provide all the thickenin’ for two. And as to what’s to hender,
you are, most likely. I’m worried to death this minute over how soon
that little gal’s heart is a-goin’ to be stove to flinders, a-findin’
out how fur you be from an’ angel dropped. She’s been up there to my
house this mornin’ slavin’ away over the cook stove a-making pies for
a surprise for you, and a-fetchin’ of ’em home so careful! Land, I
just had to laugh to see her a-carryin’ ’em home one to a time—three
trips she made of it—usin’ both hands, and a-tiptoein’ along as if
she was Undertaker Pearse a-startin’ for a funeral. And now I s’pose
she’s waitin’ there, all nerved up to see how you’ll relish ’em—not
knowin’ that you’re just about as likely to say a word o’ praise as a
rhinoceros in a circus. But if you don’t, it’ll break her little heart;
that’s all I’ve got to say.”

“Humph!” grunted Uncle Lemuel. “Well, so that’s all you got to say,
Neighbour Caldwell, I’m willin’.”

“No, ’tain’t,” retorted Mrs. Caldwell hotly. “’Tain’t by a long
shot! Another thing that blessed child’s all worked up about is that
Christmas business over to school. I sent her over on an errand to the
teacher this mornin’, and they got to talkin’ over there about how
you set down on their Christmas doin’s in the trustee meetin’. They
didn’t use your name—called you some kind of a nickname or other,
the young ones did—and she never dreamed who ’twas, but come back all
keyed up and plannin’ to git her Uncle Lem to go to the other old
what’s-his-name and fix things up. And how she’s ever goin’ to stand it
when she finds that that dear Uncle Lem of hers is the old curmudgeon
they was talkin’ about, I dunno. It’s a sin and a shame, Lem Perkins,
how that child’s cottoned to you—that’s what I call it.”

She stopped suddenly with a gulp, and wiped away a tear with the corner
of her white apron as she turned away.

Uncle Lem stepped after her.

“Em Cottle,” he said abruptly, “you’re a truthful woman, as fur as I
know—and I’ve known ye quite a spell. Do you reely b’lieve that young
one is so—so—that is——” He paused and cleared his throat. “Does she
lot on me as much as she makes out, or is she jest—doin’ it—to git my
money, mebbe?”

A blaze of anger dried the tears in Em Cottle’s eyes.

“Well,” she remarked scathingly, “blindness runs in your family, sure
enough—only with some it’s for bad and with some it’s for good—that’s
all! There ain’t no use wastin’ no more time on you; that’s sure as
preachin’.”

With a capable hitch of her green plaid shawl, she turned her plump
shoulders full upon him, and started briskly up the road.

Uncle Lemuel glanced furtively about him. The village square was empty;
not even Marthy Ann Watkins’ eye was visible at the post-office window.

“Em! Oh, Em!” he called loudly, and then, as the brisk figure in front
seemed to hesitate for a moment, he scuttled after it.

“Don’t be in such a brash, Em,” he gasped, as he caught up with her.
“We hain’t had a dish o’ talk in so long that I guess we can afford to
spend a minute or so a-doin’ it. You didn’t jest ketch my meanin’ then,
Em. I didn’t reely think that sissy, there, had plans herself, but I
didn’t know but mebbe Ellen——”

“If Ellen Rumball had had her eye on your old money bags, she wouldn’t
’a’ broke with you to go off to Injy with that missionary feller, would
she?”

Uncle Lem glowered with the remembrance of past injuries.

“Ellen Rumball pretended to like me, too,” he muttered; “and then she
deserted me in my old age for that good-for-nothin’ missionary chap.”

“Pretended?” exploded Mrs. Em; “pretended? If ’tain’t real likin’
that would make a woman swaller down all the things you said, and the
way you acted, and bring up her young ones to think you was the finest
uncle goin’, well, then it’s real grace; that’s all I’ve got to say!
And here I be, a-quarrelin’ with you the same as ever, and I’d made up
my mind butter shouldn’t melt in my mouth.”

But Uncle Lemuel was absorbed in struggling against the softening of
his grim old face.

“Ellen _has_ fetched sissy up fair to middlin’ well,” he admitted.
“She’s kind of smart for her years—handy round the house, I mean, ain’t
she, Em? And folksy—it does beat all! They couldn’t nobody around town
talk of nothin’ this mornin’ but ‘my little gal,’ as they called her.
She started out yestiddy arternoon to do her Christmas tradin’, and she
must ’a’ got acquainted with everybody in sight. She promised Marthy
Watkins some postcards from Injy. And then the minister comes along,
and she got him so interested he asked me if I’d let her speak about
missions to the Children’s Band. And Nate Waters—you know I hain’t been
in Waters’s store for a matter of a year or so, since he sold me that
busted plough—but out come Mis’ Waters this morning, to see if I’d mind
her savin’ sissy a little red chain she had there. Sissy took to it
uncommon, but she didn’t have money enough to get it, she’d bought so
much truck for other folks, and Mis’ Waters wanted to give it to her
for Christmas.”

“Well, I hope to the land you let her!” cried Mrs. Caldwell. “She
was goin’ to spend a whole fifty cents a-buyin’ you a handsome china
cup, Lem, good enough for a president. And, though Nate may be tricky
sometimes, Mis’ Waters is a real nice woman.”

Uncle Lem coughed.

“Well, here ’tis, Em,” he replied at last, producing a little packet
from his overcoat pocket. “But I guess me and my folks don’t have to be
beholden to the Waterses yet for our fixin’s. You know little Loviny
was very partial to red, too,” he added, after a moment.

They had now reached the Perkins gate, but Mrs. Caldwell suddenly
turned and laid a detaining hand on his arm.

“Why, that’s who ’tis!” she exclaimed softly. “I’ve been a-wonderin’
and a-wonderin’ who that child reminded me of. She don’t take after
Ellen Rumball exactly, nor yet Christie, as I remember him, but she’s
got the very same disposition as your little Loviny had, laughin’ all
day like a brook, and yet as serious and interested as an old woman
about things she took a notion to, and the most lovin’ little heart
that ever was. I was in the Sixth Reader when she began her A B C’s,
but she got to be friends with the whole school afore the first week
was out—and I guess there wa’n’t a dry eye to the Centre when we heard
tell about the runaway. ‘Of such is the kingdom of heaven’—that was the
text to her funeral, wa’n’t it? And I guess ’tis, too, fast enough. And
’twould come a heap sooner on earth, I’m thinkin’, if there was more
like her—wouldn’t it? Well, give my love to sissy,” she added quickly,
with kindly tact, “and tell her I’ll look for her again in the morning.”

But the old man did not heed her. Across the gulf of over forty years
he was looking once more at a gay little figure in red merino, that
danced before him, while his little daughter’s voice cried happily:

“Father, father, come kiss Loviny in her Kissmas-coloured d’ess!”




VII

EXIT “OLD GROUCHY GRUFF”


Uncle Lemuel laid down his knife and fork with a sigh of repletion, and
turned toward his little housekeeper.

“Well, sissy,” he remarked, softening his growl to a point that he
considered positively effeminate, “that ham and eggs was pretty good
for fillers, but I wouldn’t mind a little somethin’ in the line of
trimmin’s, myself. I s’pose the Widder Em hain’t sent in no more pies?”

Mary met this triumph of diplomacy with a masterpiece in kind.

“Oh, Uncle Lemuel,” she answered, struggling to hold in leash a half
dozen riotous dimples that were determined to pop out, “oh, Uncle
Lemuel, it was doughnuts she sent in this time. Won’t they do?”

And then she sat with bated breath for fear he should say that they
would.

But Uncle Lemuel did not fail her.

“Well, I s’pose I can eat doughnuts,” he growled more naturally; “but
what I should reely relish is a good piece of pie.”

At these welcome words, Mary fairly ran into the pantry and out again.

“Would you really, Uncle Lemuel?” she cried, in a state of tense
excitement. “Well, here it is! Somebody else brought them in this time.
Apple!” Back once more from the pantry. “Mince!” Another trip. “And
blueberry!” she ended triumphantly. “Which one shall I cut?”

Uncle Lemuel surveyed the sumptuous array before him.

“Well,” he finally decided, “the blueberry might soak the crust. I
dunno but we’d better begin on that. Who’d you say fetched ’em?”

“Oh, a friend of yours,” answered Mary hastily. “She wanted you to
guess after you tasted them. Here’s a nice big piece. I do hope it’s
good!”

She handed him a generous piece; and then, unmindful of the luscious
blue juice oozing temptingly upon her own plate, she sat and watched
his every mouthful with an eager anxiety that would have been
transparent to a babe in arms.

“Oh, Uncle Lemuel!” she cried, after the lapse of an eternity at least
five minutes long. “Oh, why don’t you say something? Don’t you _like_
it?”

“Why don’t you eat your own?” retorted Uncle Lemuel. “I’m just tryin’
to figger out whose bakin’ this is. It’s kind of new to me, I guess.”

“Isn’t it good?” cried Mary breathlessly.

“Uh-humph!” responded Mr. Perkins slowly, struggling to twist his
tongue to the unaccustomed language of compliment.

Suddenly a queer little sound across the table made him look up, and,
to his amazement, he saw that the usually shining brown eyes were
dimmed with tears.

“It’ll break her little heart,” Mrs. Caldwell’s voice seemed to
whisper, and with one mighty effort Uncle Lemuel threw discretion to
the winds.

“It’s better than the Widder Em’s,” he stated rashly. “And I swan I
didn’t believe there was a woman in town that could beat her on makin’
pies.”

Pretty good for a man who hadn’t turned a compliment in Heaven knows
how many years? But Heaven knows, too, how miraculously fast these hard
old hearts will soften sometimes under the warming sunshine of childish
love and trust.

“Oh, Uncle, do you mean it?” cried a choked little voice, and, with
one bound, Mary had flown around the table and flung her arms about his
neck. “Oh, Uncle Lemuel,” she sobbed happily, “I couldn’t ever have
borne it if you hadn’t liked it, for I made it myself! You’d never
believe it, would you? But you can ask Mrs. Caldwell. She showed me
how.”

“You don’t say,” responded Uncle Lemuel, patting her awkwardly on the
arm. “Was that what you had your head in the oven for when I came in? I
thought ’twas them little wind-bags you give me.”

Mary giggled happily.

“The popovers, you mean? Yes, it was. I always have to sit right down
on the floor and watch when I make them, else I don’t get them out the
right minute. I had meant those for a surprise, too, but you got here
so soon you surprised me, instead.”

“Well, you run around now, sissy, and cut me another good piece of pie.
None of your samples, now,” he added, with something that was almost a
chuckle. “And you might take a bite or two yourself, now you know it’s
safe. There won’t be no extry charge.”

It was a veritable incarnation of Merry Christmas who ran to obey these
commands.

“You don’t know what a weight that is off my mind!” she sighed
blissfully, settling down at last to “bulwark” her own constitution.
“They tasted good to me, and to the teacher, and to Nora O’Neil, but
of course you were the one that really counted. But, oh, Uncle Lemuel,
that reminds me! Do you know who it is that they call ‘old Grouchy
Gruff’?”

“Huh?” demanded Mr. Perkins, with a growl that would have answered the
question to any ears less unsuspecting than those of his little niece.

“Old Grouchy Gruff?” inquired Mary, raising her voice. “Mrs. Caldwell
said she couldn’t tell me. Do you know him?”

Uncle Lemuel shook his head.

“Don’t you, either?” Mary leaned forward confidentially. “Well, Uncle
Lemuel, there is somebody around here that they call that. It seems
unbelievable, but there’s a man in town so horrid that he has stopped
the Christmas Eve party at the schoolhouse. The biggest taxpayer, they
say he was, Uncle Lemuel. Who would that be?”

But Uncle Lemuel was deeply absorbed in blueberry pie and showed no
interest in the identity of old Grouchy Gruff.

“Do you know,” continued Mary thoughtfully, “I almost believe there’s
some mistake about it somewhere. It doesn’t seem possible that there
would be anybody who’d stop the children from being happy on the night
when the dear little Baby Jesus was born in the manger, and the angels
sang: ‘Peace on earth, good will to men.’ Oh, I just love that part,
don’t you? The shepherds, and the soft, dark-blue night, and then the
lovely star and the angels singing.” She paused, and a reverent look
softened the brown eyes that shone themselves like two little Christmas
stars. “Oh, Uncle, it’s so beautiful that it makes little thrills go
all over me, and I want to cry and I want to laugh. Mother used to read
it to us every Christmas Eve, and then we used to sing, ‘When shepherds
watched their flocks by night.’ Oh, I wish they would sing that at the
Christmas party!”

“Thought there wa’n’t goin’ to be none,” growled Mr. Perkins.

Mary smiled cheerfully.

“Oh, I think there will be,” she answered confidently. “Mother says
things always turn out right when you pray about them, and of course I
have; and, besides, it’s really His own birthday party, and it must be
right for us to celebrate that.”

“Was you asked to the party?” inquired Uncle Lemuel.

“Of course I’m not asked yet, because there isn’t any; but if we can
only get that party for them somehow, they’d invite us both, I’m sure.
Oh, wouldn’t that be fun! Oh, Uncle, we’ve just got to! First, you ask
everybody all around who old Grouchy Gruff is, and then, when you find
out, we’ll go and talk to him and explain. Oh, I’m sure he’d take it
back if _you_ explained things to him. Why, _anybody_ would be nice
about a thing like that if he only understood.”

Uncle Lemuel coughed uneasily.

“Mebbe he has his reasons, sissy,” he began; “mebbe he has his reasons.
They was talkin’ it over to the Emporium the other day, and ’tain’t the
party part nor the Christmas part that folks objects to so much. It’s
the schoolhouse. ’Tain’t right to the deestrict to tear the schoolhouse
to flinders for a thing like that. Why, they’d have to haul up the
desks offen the floor, and rack the benches all to pieces, like as not,
and move the teacher’s desk and all. They couldn’t have a party with
the floor all cluttered up with desks and such.”

Mary pondered.

“And it would be bad for the desks and seats to move them?”

“Tear ’em to flinders,” stated Uncle Lemuel uncompromisingly,
following up his advantage. “And, besides, they wanted to make candy
and popcorn, and a schoolroom is no place for that. They need a kitchen
stove.”

Mary was still pondering, but her eyes were suddenly brighter.

“Besides,” added Uncle Lemuel, delighted that his eloquence was proving
even more effective here than it had in that memorable session at the
Emporium, “the schoolhouse don’t light up very first-class, nor heat
neither—for a winter night. We don’t want the young ones a-ketchin’
their deaths,” he finished, with an effective, but unexpected, burst of
altruism.

Mary clapped her hands.

“Oh, I knew you and I could fix it all right!” she cried gleefully.
“Yes, sir; we can have it right here in this kitchen. I’d rather have
it than the other party we planned. And that old Grouchy ogre man won’t
have a thing to say. Mrs. Caldwell said you couldn’t do anything about
it, but I knew better. And, oh, Uncle Lemuel, this will be just too
lovely for words! We’ll put the tree in that corner, and they can make
their candy and popcorn on the stove, and still have plenty of room to
play games. I knew what you meant the very minute you said kitchen
stove, and I do think you are the nicest, dearest, preciousest uncle
that ever walked, so I do!” She ran around the table again to bestow
an ecstatic hug upon the speechless Mr. Perkins. “And everybody else
thinks so, too, for I asked them yesterday, and not a person disagreed.”

“This kitchen is just like a talent, isn’t it, Uncle Lem? I guess you
must be the man that had ten of them; you have so many ways to make
people happy. I have only one so far—a loving heart; and everybody has
that, of course; but mother says, if I keep hard at work with that,
I’ll get others to use in time. When do you suppose afternoon recess
is, uncle?”

“Huh?” inquired Mr. Perkins, in a voice that betrayed his condition of
utter daze.

“Afternoon recess?” repeated Mary, more loudly. “I just can’t wait to
go over and tell those poor children that it’s all right. They’ll be so
happy. Oh, Uncle, you dear, dear thing! Don’t you want to go, too?”

“I’ve got to go over to Meadsbury this afternoon,” explained Uncle
Lemuel hastily. “Thought you might like to go for the ride. There’s
room enough in the cutter. You get ready, while I tackle up. We can
leave the dishes.”

“Oh, goody! My fourth sleigh ride! I’ll just slip on my hat and coat,
and run ahead. You can stop at the schoolhouse for me. Do you know,
Uncle Lemuel, I don’t want to find out who old Grouchy Gruff is, after
all? So don’t ask, will you? I want to love everybody in Oatka Centre,
and I know I never could a man like that.”

Up till that moment, Uncle Lemuel had really meant in the back of his
mind to “put a stop to sissy’s foolishness” as soon as he could get
his breath, but right then and there a most remarkable thing happened.
A poor, starved, rickety old organ down under his left ribs, which he
had almost forgotten he owned, and would have been ashamed to mention,
anyway, suddenly spoke up in the most surprising manner.

“You’ve starved and choked and neglected me for these many years,
Lemuel Perkins,” it said, “and tried your best sometimes to kill me off
entirely; but the tonic of that little girl’s love, with the tender
memories that it wakens in me, has called me back again to life and
strength. You may explain in any way you like to those old loafers at
the Emporium, you may growl all you choose to old Topsy out in the
barn, but you may _not_ disappoint that little heart that believes in
you and loves you, in spite of yourself, nor choke up that little
fountain of innocent affection that is filling my very cockles full of
youth and love.”

And Uncle Lemuel proved that he was a wise man, after all, by pulling
his old cap down low over his ears, and stamping without a word out to
the barn to “tackle up.”

Half an hour later he stopped old Topsy in front of the stone
schoolhouse, to pick up a small and excited “brown package with a red
label,” that certainly said “Merry Christmas” as far as you could see
it.

“Oh, Uncle Lemuel,” cried the package, bobbing to his side as if it
were full of springs, “why didn’t you come a little sooner? Oh, I wish
you had been here! I whispered about it to Miss Porter, and she stopped
the classes and let me tell them all myself what you said about the
schoolhouse, and that you invited them to come to your house for the
Christmas party. At first they thought my uncle was Deacon Caldwell,
wasn’t that funny? But when they heard that it was you, they all just
clapped and clapped. They like you awfully, don’t they, you dear, dear
Uncle Lem? And then they gave three cheers for Merry Christmas—that’s
me; and then three more for you. Oh, I wish you could have heard them
say: ‘What’s the matter with Mr. Perkins? He’s all right!’ I was so
proud, I almost cried when I heard them. Uncle Lemuel, this is going to
be the very happiest Christmas that ever was, isn’t it?”




VIII

UNCLE LEM’S CHRISTMAS PARTY


The village of Oatka Centre had no sooner swallowed the amazing fact
that Lemuel Perkins was going to give the school children a Christmas
party in his own house, than its bump of credulity was again strained
almost to the bursting point by the information that Mrs. Em Caldwell
was helping actively about the preparations, and that Mr. Lemuel
Perkins himself had been seen bringing several parcels from “Nate
Waterses store,” and even talking amicably with Elder Smith on the
subject of missions in India and a certain small missionary from that
land, though various essential differences between free will and
predestination had previously cleft an impassable gulf between them.

“Will wonders never cease?” marvelled Oatka Centre, and then decided
unanimously that they certainly would not, for about that time it
transpired that the children’s party had enlarged into a neighbourhood
celebration, and that every man, woman, and child in the village was
invited.

It had been Merry Christmas’s first idea to invite the fathers
and mothers to come with their children; but then so many of her
particular friends—like Mr. Bennett, and Mrs. Caldwell, and Miss Marthy
Watkins—were not blessed with children that it seemed impossible
to narrow the gates of paradise in that manner. And when it was
once decided to light the fires in the long-disused parlour and
sitting-room, there really seemed to be no excuse for shutting out
anybody; particularly as Uncle Lemuel developed a sudden mania for
inviting every person who had a good word to speak for his “little
sissy”; and who in Oatka Centre hadn’t by the time those two jolly
weeks of holiday preparation were over? For, like an unconscious
messenger of “peace on earth, good will to men,” she had bobbed from
the schoolhouse to the stores and back again, and presently into every
house in the village, on one errand or another, trading happily with
her one little talent, and leaving a trail of “Merry Christmas” in the
air behind her.

Talk about your Marconi stations! There is nothing like a little human
heart brimming over with goodwill, and bubbling with enthusiasm, to
fill the air so full of Christmas spirit that not another thought can
find a wave to ride on.

And so it happened that by the time the windows of the brown Perkins
homestead were set cheerily ablaze the snowy village streets were
crackling and snapping merrily under the tread of many feet.

“I dunno as I’d orter ’a’ shut up the post-office and come,” confided
Miss Watkins to her neighbour, Mrs. Waters, as they creaked cheerfully
along together at the end of the line, “when the six o’clock is so late
and the mail hain’t come in, but Merry Christmas she couldn’t have it
no other way. She said she was goin’ to have Tom Bennett for Sandy
Claus, anyway, and she’d just rig him up and have him fetch in the mail
bags, too, and I could call the letters and passels out right there.”

“That’s a good idee,” assented Mrs. Waters. “Trust that little gal for
fixin’ things around. She got Nate to shut up, too; and Job, he’s even
locked up the Emporium. Both on ’em is about sold out, anyway. There
hain’t been such a time for Christmas tradin’ in Oatka Centre dear
knows when. It’s funny how that young one stirs things up. It’s her
bein’ brought up in Injy, I expect, and a missionary’s daughter, so.
Why, the Baby Jesus and the shepherds and the wise men and the angels
and all is just as real to her as if they was out in Lem’s paster
this minute, and she seen ’em. Makes you feel kind of green to have a
young one come from heathen lands to teach us Christian folks about
Christmas!”

“It’s her takin’ things so for granted,” explained Miss Watkins. “I
hain’t give nobody much for Christmas in years, made an excuse of
bein’ in the office and not havin’ time; and so I told her when she
was in consultin’ me about some of her Christmas doin’s. Well, sir—the
next afternoon in she breezed about two o’clock, and said she’d come
to tend office for me till four, so I could go and do my tradin’;
and land if she hadn’t wrote a list, too, of some things that she’d
heard my sister’s young ones say they wanted.” She stopped to laugh
deprecatingly. “Well, Priscilla, you know I come and bought ’em, don’t
ye?”

“I bet that’s how she’s worked it with Lem,” answered Mrs. Waters.
“Took it for granted he was so decent that he was ashamed not to be.
Lem’s reely quite human these days. Do you remember his little gal,
Loviny, that he lost years and years ago. Well, he’s been and hunted
out a little red dress she had, and he wanted me to get some cloth just
that colour and then to have Mis’ Mosher make it up on the sly for
Merry. It was for a Christmas present, but Mis’ Mosher carried it up
this mornin’, and I’ll bet she’ll have it on to-night.”

By this time the two women had reached the brown gate, and they stopped
to admire the Christmas wreaths that shone against the lighted panes.

“Twenty on ’em there is, in all, and a little bell inside of each one,”
announced Miss Watkins. “Miss Porter told me, though you can’t see but
twelve from here. The young ones made ’em yesterday to the schoolhouse.
Say, there she is now—red dress and all!”

There she was indeed, little Merry Christmas, in her “Kissmas-coloured”
dress, with a wreath of holly crowning her brown braids—literally
exploding with joy and delight into a hundred little ripples of
laughter.

Unmindful of the cold air outside, she danced down the steps to meet
the latest comers.

“Oh, goody!” she cried. “I was so afraid you’d be late, and I didn’t
want you to miss anything. The children are going to sing their carols
first, and then we’re going to have the tree and then the popcorn and
candy. We made those this afternoon, for there really wouldn’t have
been any room to-night, there are so many here. And uncle has put a
dish of apples everywhere he could possibly make room. He thinks apples
are almost as healthy as pies. You just come this way to the back entry
and hang your things up. Oh, listen! They’re beginning now. Do you
suppose I can ever get into the kitchen far enough to sing?”

She certainly couldn’t if she had been anybody but her active little
self, for everybody else seemed to want to get into that kitchen, too.
And no wonder, for it was certainly an attractive spot, with its old
walls wreathed with ground pine and gay streamers, and the lighted
Christmas tree sparkling at the end, with a ring of happy young faces
beneath it, lustily carolling their Christmas songs.

[Illustration: “Oh, goody!” she cried. “I was so afraid you’d be late,
and I didn’t want you to miss anything”]

It was a mammoth kitchen, too, built in the days when the kitchen was
really the living-room and the heart of the house. But, bless you!
it would have taken half a dozen such kitchens to contain all the
happiness and eager anticipation and radiant good-fellowship that
were rampant there; to say nothing at all of all the people who were
disjointing their necks, and standing on each other’s feet, and poking
holes in each other’s ribs, in their anxiety to hear the music, and
see the decorations, and most of all to satisfy themselves for the
hundredth time that their own little Johns and Marys were far and
away the handsomest children there, and the best singers, and that it
was a wonder that all the other fathers and mothers weren’t blushing
with mortification at the painful obviousness of these facts.

First and foremost of all these self-complacent mortals was Mr. Lemuel
Perkins, though he would have been the last person in the world to
admit, or even to suspect, the fact; though nobody knows how else he
could have explained the proud lift of his bristling chin whisker, or
the positively vainglorious swelling of his chest, as a certain little
holly-crowned figure in a red dress was lifted mysteriously on high,
and smiled radiantly upon the assembled guests.

“Santa Claus is rather slow to-night,” announced the clear, childish
voice, “because some of his pack came by mail, and the train is late;
but my Uncle Lemuel will take his place till he comes. Oh, there he is,
over by the sink. Will you let Uncle Lemuel through, if you please?”

Uncle Lemuel glanced wildly about, but there was no avenue of escape
unless he leaped directly through the sink window. And in front of him
a way was opening through that mass of humanity as miraculously as if
Moses had been present with his famous rod. Even his growl of dissent
was lost in the merry babel of voices around him, as a score of hands
pushed him forward to where a little red-garbed figure welcomed him
joyfully.

“I’ll help you, Uncle, if you can’t see the names very well,” she
whispered. “But they’ll like to have you do the calling out.”

“Now, look here, sissy,” he protested; “I ain’t goin’ to have no
foolishness. Tom Bennett can rig himself up in a mess of red flannin
and cotton battin’ if he wants to, but I hain’t goin’ to make no show
of _my_self.”

“Mercy, no!” giggled Mary. “You aren’t round enough for Santa Claus,
anyway. You just call out the names. Here’s one for Elder Smith, and
Sarah Haskell, and Deacon Caldwell. There are perfect heaps. Oh, hurry,
do!”

Uncle Lemuel glanced at the first parcel, and a grim, “down-East” sense
of humour triumphed.

“Waal, Elder Smith,” he announced in stentorian tones, “I seem
predestined to hand you over this passel, that’s sure. I’ll bet you
can’t prove it was my free will this time.”

The burst of laughter that acclaimed this witticism was so intoxicating
that Mr. Perkins promptly proceeded to make another, which was even
more successful. Whereupon he yielded himself so thoroughly to the
unaccustomed delight of public appreciation and approval that when the
real Santa Claus finally came he was forced to divide his honours with
a determined Uncle Lemuel, who evidently regarded him as an upstart and
an interloper.

But bless me! nobody minded that, and least of all the genial Mr.
Bennett, for two Santa Clauses and a Merry Christmas and half a dozen
understudies and assistants were none too many to tackle that mass of
Christmas presents and clear them out of the way in time for the games
and other jollifications to begin.

It was a mercy that the popcorn and the molasses candy were all made
beforehand, for otherwise the whole school, and their presents, and
their teacher, and the tree, would have been stuck together in one huge
and inextricable popcorn ball; they barely escaped that fate as it was
just in the eating of those toothsome dainties. But blindman’s-buff and
stage-coach and puss-in-the-corner have their advantage in the line of
keeping things moving and preventing you from being glued for life to
your next neighbour if you chance to adhere in passing.

“Well, this is a real, right-down, old-fashioned Christmas party,
‘same as mother used to make,’ ain’t it?” queried Deacon Caldwell
jovially of the man next him and then stopped suddenly, as he realized
that that man was his time-honoured foe, Mr. Perkins.

But Mr. Perkins had no thought for any ancient grudges just then.

“What’s become of sissy?” he demanded sharply. “I can’t spot her
nowhere in sight. She was blindman along back, but she hain’t playin’
now.”

“She must be in the parlour,” suggested Deacon Caldwell kindly. “Like
as not she went in to hunt up Em. They’re great cronies, her and Em.”

“No, she ain’t,” retorted Uncle Lemuel shortly. “She ain’t there nor in
the settin’-room, nor upstairs in the bedrooms. You don’t s’pose she’s
been and took sick, somewheres, do ye?” he added anxiously. “Et too
much stuff, or come down with that scarlet fever, mebbe?”

“Why, sho now, Lem!” cried the deacon sympathetically. “I’d hate to
think so. But let’s go get Em. Em’s a master hand in sickness if need
be.”

“It’ll be easy enough to find her by the red dress,” said Mrs. Caldwell
encouragingly as she joined the little party of searchers. But
“upstairs and downstairs and in my lady’s chamber” they looked, and no
sign of the “Kissmas-coloured” dress did they see.

“There’s the cellar and the woodshed still left,” comforted Mrs.
Caldwell, glancing sidewise at Uncle Lemuel’s grimly suffering face.

And just as they reached the back-entry door, a little figure in a red
dress popped in from the woodshed entrance, a radiant little figure,
that waved a lantern on high, and flung itself joyfully upon Uncle
Lemuel.

“Where’ve you been?” demanded that gentleman with the gruffness of
relief. “We’ve been huntin’ you from garret to cellar.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry if you worried!” cried Mary penitently. “I never
thought you’d notice. Mr. Bennett brought me a letter, you see, from
mother—my Christmas letter—and of course I was dying to read it, and I
couldn’t find a single place that was quiet, so I took a lantern and
went out to the woodshed.”

“I hope you hain’t took your death of cold,” cried Mrs. Caldwell
anxiously.

“Oh, no; I’m warm as toast,” answered Mary happily. “And I’ve had the
nicest news you ever knew. Father and mother and the children are
all coming back to America! Isn’t that lovely? That’s been the only
drawback to this perfectly beautiful Christmas here—missing them all
so—and now—just think! They’re coming, too!”

“How do they happen to be comin’?” queried Mrs. Caldwell, returning
Mary’s ecstatic embrace.

“Why, it’s on account of father’s health. Father’s not been very strong
for a long time. But neither was I, and look at me now! He’ll be all
right as soon as he gets to Oatka Centre, and eats enough pie and
things.”

“Oh, are they comin’ here?” inquired Mrs. Caldwell, in a voice in which
pleasure and surprise were mingled. Oatka Centre had not yet forgotten
that when Ellen Rumball chose to marry and go to India, she had done
so in face of the threat that the Perkins doors would be closed to her
henceforth and forever.

But Mary returned her gaze with wide-open, astonished eyes.

“Why, she didn’t _say_ Oatka Centre,” she cried. “But where else should
they come? Why, mother loves Oatka Centre better than any other place
on earth, she always says. And father has no family at all. So Uncle
Lemuel is our nearest surviving relative,” she ended quaintly.

“Why, that’s so, of course,” agreed Mrs. Caldwell hastily. “How soon
did you say they was comin’?”

“Right away, mother says. Isn’t that grand? Maybe I won’t even go back
to school. Crescent Hill is lovely—for a school; but of course a real
home, with Uncle Lemuel and the rest of my family, would be lots nicer.
Oh, Uncle Lemuel, aren’t you glad as can be?”

But the old man was gazing at her with dazed eyes.

“Was you—goin’ back—to school, sissy?” he said slowly. “When?”

“Why, week after next, Uncle Lemuel. We’ve had a whole month, you see.
But if mother is coming here to live maybe she won’t make me, and I can
stay right along and bake pies for you all winter. Oh, goody, goody!
I’m so glad that my toes are skipping round inside my shoes. Do come
with me while I go and ask Miss Porter what class she would put me in.”

But Uncle Lemuel, muttering something about “the stock,” stepped to the
back door, and walked slowly out under the silent stars.

“Oh, he’s going out to see if they kneel down,” explained Mary happily,
after a second of surprise. “I heard that the animals all knelt in
their stalls on Christmas Eve; and he promised me that he’d go and look
and call me if they did. But I’m afraid that he’s too early. They
don’t do it till twelve o’clock, I think. I must run and tell him to
wait.”

Mrs. Caldwell laid a detaining hand upon her arm.

“I wouldn’t bother him if I was you, dearie,” she said. “Mebbe he’ll
find ’em now. It’s Christmas Eve, anyhow.”

For Mrs. Caldwell, down deep in her heart, was praying eagerly that the
stars of Christmas Eve would lead Uncle Lemuel, as they had led the
Wise Men long ago, to learn the lessons of humbleness and love by the
side of a manger.




IX

MERRY CHRISTMAS FINDS THE HAPPY NEW YEAR


“Merry Christmas!” shouted a gay little voice, so close to Uncle
Lemuel’s ear that he turned suddenly and almost dropped the pen with
which he was laboriously scratching upon a sheet of paper. “Merry
Christmas! You were such a dear not to wake me up, but it is really
scandalous, isn’t it, not to get up early on my namesake morning? And
you’ve been wanting your breakfast, I know. Aren’t you nearly starved,
Uncle Lemuel, honest?”

Uncle Lemuel permitted himself the luxury of a wintry smile.

“Pretty nigh,” he assented. “I hain’t had a bite to eat but half a pie,
and three, four doughnuts, and two cups of coffee, and a little bread
and butter. Before you get them buck-wheats going I’ll likely drop in
my tracks.”

Mary giggled appreciatively.

“Poor thing!” she cried, with tender mockery. “Well, I’ll hurry.
Wasn’t Mrs. Caldwell a dear to mix these for me before she went home?
And weren’t she and Mrs. Waters and Miss Watkins and Miss Porter
perfect _angels_ to stay and clear up the house for us? Oatka Centre
people are certainly the loveliest in the world, just as mother says.
Why, Uncle, what are you doing?”

“Oh, nothing,” returned Mr. Perkins briefly; “just a-writin’ a letter.”
He spoke as carelessly as if letter writing were a daily occurrence
with him, instead of an event that was more nearly decennial. “You
hurry with them cakes, sissy. I’m used to havin’ my breakfast some time
afore sundown, though I s’pose any time will do for them that’s lived
turned upside downward on Injy’s coral strand.”

This was a time-honoured joke between them by now, so Mary giggled
again, meanwhile beating her batter with a skilful hand and issuing
directions about the table setting.

“Let’s have it right over under the Christmas tree. I’m so glad they
had to leave that! And you must put on your new cup and drink your
coffee in it. See, I have my red chain on this morning. I didn’t dare
to wear my be-yoo-tiful red dress, but I’m going to put it on for
dinner when we go to Mrs. Caldwell’s. I’m so glad she’s going to have
Miss Porter, too—and Mr. Bennett. I was afraid they didn’t have any
nice place to go. And, oh, Uncle Lemuel, what’s that box you’re hiding
in my chair? Another present? You _dear_! I’m going to open it right
away!”

“You hold your horses, sissy, till you get them cakes done,” growled
Uncle Lemuel.

In due time a stack of cakes that matched Uncle Lemuel’s appetite was
ready, and then the box was opened and the girl “began to sing,” though
“sing” is really a very polite word with which to describe the series
of shrieks, squeals, and even whoops of ecstasy with which she greeted
the consecutive appearance of six wonderful sets of hair ribbons.

“I shall wear them all!” she cried recklessly, and promptly proceeded
to deck her neat brown braids like May poles with a series of
fluttering bows—red, light blue, dark blue, yellow, white, and, at the
very end, two wonderful rosettes of exquisite pink, which were rivalled
in colour only by the tint of the cheeks above them.

“Oh, Uncle Lemuel!” she cried, in solemn rapture. “I feel as if I must
have died and gone to heaven. I love pink so that it almost makes me
ache to look at it. That’s my only objection to being an angel—always
having to wear white clothes and wings. Don’t you think maybe, if
I was very good, the Lord would let me have a set of pink ones for
Sundays?”

But Uncle Lemuel’s theology was not prepared for such imaginative
flights.

“You’d better eat your vittles, sissy,” he remarked drily. “Time enough
for choosin’ your wings when you have them to wear. Coffee’s kind of
tasty this mornin’,” he added craftily. “Wonder if it’s the cup?”

“Let me taste yours and see,” cried Mary, prancing eagerly around the
table. “Yes, I believe it is. Oh, Uncle, see what I’ve done—got a
splash of coffee on your letter! I’ll see if I can’t mop it off. Why,
Uncle, it begins, ‘Niece Ellen!’ Were you writing to mother?”

Uncle Lemuel nodded.

“You see,” he explained slowly, “Ellen and me, we had some words a
while back, and I thought mebbe she mightn’t feel free—that is, I
thought mebbe she and Christie would feel freer to come and make their
home with us for a spell if I wrote and invited ’em right away. I told
’em that the school was first-class, and that I should start you right
there with Miss Porter till they come. Do you like that idee?” he ended
anxiously.

Mary embraced him rapturously.

“Like it?” she cried. “Oh, Uncle Lemuel, I like it so much I can
scarcely speak! I never saw anybody that did such lovely things for
people all the time!” She paused a minute, and then clapped her hands.
“Oh, I know what you are!” she said suddenly. “We are twins, just as I
said—for I am your little Merry Christmas, and you are the great, big
Happy New Year that goes with me.”


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Little Merry Christmas

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*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78374 ***