Lydia of the Pines/Chapter 3

by Honoré Willsie

 

CHAPTER III

THE COTTAGE

"The young pine knows the secrets of the ground. The old pine knows the stars."

The Murmuring Pine.

MARSHALL cleared his throat and reaching out, took Lydia by the arm and pulled her toward him. He could feel her muscles stiffen under his touch. The bright red color left her cheeks.

"I wouldn't think much of your father, my child," he said, huskily, "if he let me whip you, even if I wanted to."

Lydia took a quick look up into his face. Then she gave a little gasping sigh, her lips quivered and she leaned against his knee.

"Look here, Lydia," said Dave Marshall, "this is to be your punishment. I want you and Kent to teach Margery how to swim and how to get dirty, see? Let her play with you 'common kids,' will you?"

"Will her mother let her?" asked Lydia.

"Yes," answered Dave, grimly.

"All right," said Lydia, with a little sigh.

"I know it'll be a hard job," Marshall interpreted the sigh quickly; "that's where the punishment comes in."

"Lydia'll do it. I'll see to it," said Amos.

"You keep out, Dudley. This is between Lydia and me. How about it, Lydia?"

"If you'll boss her mother, I'll boss Margery and Kent," said Lydia, with a sudden laugh.

"It's a bargain." Marshall rose. "Good night, Dudley." "Good night, Marshall."

Amos followed his caller to the door. As he did so Lydia heard Kent's whistle in the back yard. She joined him and the two withdrew to a bench behind the woodshed.

"I saw him through the window," said Kent, in a low voice. "What's he going to do to us? Dad's licked me, so that much is done."

Lydia told of their punishment. "Darn it," groaned Kent, "I'd rather had another licking. I certainly do hate that girl."

"So do I," agreed Lydia.

The two sat staring into the summer twilight. "Anyhow," said Lydia, "I hit her an awful smack in the face to-day. Of course, I had to, but that's why her nose bled so."

"I wish you'd busted her old snoot," grumbled Kent. "She's always turning it up at everybody. We saved somebody's life to-day, by golly, and you'd think we'd committed a crime."

Lydia sighed. "Nothing to look forward to but worry now. O gee, Kent, I've got two pennies! One's Patience's. But let's go spend the other at Spence's!"

"Gum or all day sucker?" asked Kent, who, in spite of the fact that he owned a second-hand bicycle, was not above sharing a penny.

"Gum lasts longer," suggested Lydia.

"What kinda gum, spruce or white or tutti-frutti?"

"You can choose."

"Spruce then. It makes the most juice. Come on, Lyd, before you're called in."

And thus ended the heroic day.

No one ever knew what Dave Marshall said to Elviry, his wife, but a day or so after, little Margery, in a fine white flannel bathing suit, appeared on the sand, about a quarter of a mile below the Willows. Here any bright day from the last of June to the first week in September, a dozen children might be found at play in and out of the water. There was usually a mother or an older sister somewhere about, but it was to be noted that Mrs. Marshall never appeared. Margery came and went with Lydia.

Kent was a quitter! After the rescue he decided to eschew the society of girls forever and he struck a bargain with Lydia that she could have the use of his bicycle one day a week till snow came if she would undertake the disciplining of the banker's daughter alone. For such a bribe Lydia would have undertaken to teach Elviry Marshall, herself, to swim—and so the bargain was struck.

Margery, it was quickly discovered, sousing in the water with the other children was quite "a common kid" herself and though there seemed to be an inherent snobbishness in the little girl that returned to her as soon as she was dried and clothed, in her bathing suit she mucked about and screamed and quarreled as did the rest.

Lydia's method of teaching was one employed by most of the children of Lake City when a new child moved into the town. She forced Margery to float face downward in the water, again and again, while she counted ten. After one afternoon of this, the banker's daughter had forever lost her fear of the water and the rest was easy.

In spite of the relationship Dave Marshall had established between the two children, Margery and Lydia did not like each other. One Saturday afternoon, after banking hours, Marshall was seated on his front porch, with Elviry and Margery, when Lydia appeared. She stood on the steps in her bathing suit, her bare feet in a pair of ragged "sneakers." Her face and hands and ankles were dirty but her eyes and the pink of her cheeks were clear.

"Come on, Marg," said Lydia, "and, Mr. Marshall, please, won't you come too and see how well she does it?"

"Run and get into your bathing suit, daughter," said Marshall. "Elviry, want to come?"

"No," snapped Elviry. "Lydia, how do you manage to get so dirty, when to my positive knowledge, you're in the water an hour every day?"

Lydia blushed and tried to hide one ankle behind the other. "I think you're terrible impolite," she murmured.

Dave roared with laughter. "Right you are, Lydia! I guess I'll have to hitch up and drive us all over."

They drove to the Willows and Margery went through her paces, while her father watched and applauded from the shore. When they had finished and had run up and down to warm up and dry off and were driving home, Dave said,

"You'd better come in to supper with us, Lydia."

"No, thank you," answered the child. "Mr. Levine's coming to supper at our house and I have to cook it."

"Hum! What does John Levine do at your house, so much?"

"Oh, he's going into politics," answered Lydia, innocently, "and Dad advises him."

"Well, tell them you've done a fine job as a swimming teacher," Dave spoke carelessly. "I don't see why Levine wants to get into politics. He's doing well in real estate."

"Oh!" exclaimed Lydia, with a child's importance at having real news to impart, "he's going into politics so's to get some Indian land."

"Like hell he is!" exclaimed Marshall.

"Oh, Daddy!" Margery's voice was exactly like her mother's.

They were turning into the Marshall driveway and Marshall's face was a curious mixture of amusement and irritation. He kissed his little daughter when he lifted her from the buggy and bade her run to the house. Before he lifted Lydia down he paused and as he stood on the ground and she sat in the surrey, she looked levelly into his black eyes.

"I wish I had another little daughter like you, Lydia," he said. "I don't see why—but God, you can't get swans from barnyard fowl." He continued to study Lydia's face. "Some day, my child, you'll make some man's heart break, or lift him up to heaven."

Lydia squirmed.

"Well, Margery's taught now," she said hastily, "so I don't have to be punished any more, do I?"

Marshall scowled slightly. "What do you mean? Don't you want Margery to play with you?"

"Oh, sure, she can play, if she wants to, but I mean I don't have to go get her and bring her into our games."

"No," said Dave slowly, "but I think it would be nice of you to sort of keep an eye on her and get her dirty once in a while. There! Run home, child, you're shivering."

With puzzled eyes, Lydia obeyed.

The most important result, as far as Lydia was interested, of the talk between her father and Levine that night was that Amos decided definitely to move the following week. Lydia cried a little over it, reproached God in her prayers and then with a child's resignation to the inevitability of grown up decision, she began to say good-by to the neighborhood children and to help old Lizzie to pack.

Lydia did not see the new home until she rode out with the first dray-load of furniture. She sat in the high seat beside the driver, baby Patience in her lap, her thin, long little legs dangling, her cheeks scarlet with excitement and the warmth of a hot September morning. The cottage was a mile from the old home. They drove along the maple shaded street for the first half of the distance, then turned into a dirt road that led toward the lake shore. The dirt road emerged on the shore a half mile above the Willows and wound along a high embankment, crowned with oaks.

"Whoa!" shouted the driver.

"Oh, isn't it pretty!" exclaimed Lydia.

An old-fashioned white cottage, with green blinds and a tiny front porch, stood beside the road, its back to the lake. There were five acres or so of ground around the house, set off by a white picket fence. At the gate a pine tree stood. There were oaks and lilac bushes in the front yard. Through the leaves, Lydia saw the blue of the lake.

"Our yard runs right down to the water!" she cried, as the driver lifted the baby down and she followed after. "Gee! I'm glad we moved!"

"It is a nice little spot," said the driver, "but kinda lonely." He set the perambulator inside the fence, then balanced the dining-room table on his head and started up the path to the door.

Lydia looked along the road, where an occasional house was to be seen.

"I hope kids live in those houses," she said, "but if they don't, baby and the lake are company enough for me, and Kent can come out on his wheel."

She strapped Patience into the perambulator, then ran up to the house. The front door gave directly into a living-room of good proportions. Out of this folding doors led into a small dining-room and beyond this a kitchen of generous size with a wonderful view of the glimmering lake from its rear windows. A comfortable-sized bedroom opened off each of these rooms. Lydia ran through the little house eagerly. It was full of windows and being all on one floor, gave a fine effect of spaciousness. It was an old house but in excellent repair as was all John Levine's property.

"I'm going to have the bedroom off the kitchen, 'cause you can see the lake from it," she told the driver.

"It'll be colder'n charity in the winter. Better take the middle one," he remarked, setting the kitchen stove down with a bang.

"No, old Lizzie'll want to have that. Well, I'll begin to get things settled."

Lizzie arrived on the third and final load. She brought with her a lunch that they shared with the driver. He good-naturedly set up the kitchen stove and the three beds for them and departed with the hope that they would not be too lonesome.

Lydia and old Lizzie put in an afternoon of gigantic effort. By six o'clock, the beds were made, dishes unpacked and in the china closet, the table was set for supper and an Irish stew of Lydia's make was simmering on the stove.

When Amos came up the path at a half after six, his dinner pail in his hand, he found Lydia flat on her back on the little front porch. Her curly head was wet with perspiration; face, hands and blouse were black. The baby sat beside her, trying to get Florence Dombey to sleep.

"Well," said Amos, looking down on his family, "how do you like it, Lydia?"

"It's great! My back's broken! Supper's ready."

"You shouldn't lift heavy things, child! How often have I told you? Wait until I get home."

"I want to get things done," replied Lydia, "so's I can do a little playing before school opens. Come on in and see all we've done, Daddy."

She forget her aching back and led the way into the house. Amos was as excited and pleased as the children and Lizzie, so tired that her old hands shook, was as elated as the others.

"It's much more roomy than the old house and all on one floor. 'Twill save me the stairs. And the garden'll be fine," she said, failing to call attention to the fact that the water was far from the house and that there was no kitchen sink.

"We've got to try to keep this place cleaner than we did the other," said Amos. "Lydia, better wash up for supper."

"Oh, Daddy," said Lydia, "I'm too tired! Don't make me!"

"All right," answered Amos, "but your mother was always clean and so am I. I don't see where you get it."

"Maybe one of my ancestors was a garbage man," suggested Lydia, sliding into her place at the table.

She allowed Lizzie to carry Patience into their bedroom after supper and Amos, smoking in the yard and planning the garden for next year, waited in vain to hear "Beulah Land" and "Wreathe me no gaudy chaplet" float to him from the open window.

"Where's Lydia, Lizzie?" he asked as the old lady came out to empty the dish water.

"She ain't come out yet. Maybe she's fell asleep too."

The two tip-toed to the window. On the bed under the covers was little Patience, fast asleep, and beside her, on top of the covers, fully dressed, lay Lydia, an arm across her little sister, in the sleep of utter exhaustion.

"I'll just take her shoes off and cover her and leave her till morning," said Lizzie.

But Amos, gazing at his two ill-kempt little daughters, at the chaotic room, did not answer except to murmur to himself, "Oh, Patience! Patience!"

The cottage was somewhat isolated. Amos was three quarters of a mile from his work. The schoolhouse was a mile away and the nearest trolley, which Lizzie must take to do the family shopping, was half a mile back along the dirt road.

Nevertheless, all the family felt that they had taken a distinct step upward in moving into lake shore property and nobody complained of distances. Amos began putting in his Sundays in cleaning up the bramble-grown acres he intended to turn into a garden in the spring. He could not afford to have it plowed so he spaded it all himself, during the wonderful bright fall Sabbaths. Nor was this a hardship for Amos. Only the farm bred can realize the reminiscent joy he took in wrestling with the sod, which gave up the smell that is more deeply familiar to man than any other in the range of human experience.

A dairy farmer named Norton, up the road, gave him manure in exchange for the promise of early vegetables for his table. After his spading was done in late September, Amos, with his wheelbarrow, followed by the two children, began his trips between the dairy farm and his garden patch and he kept these up until the garden was deep with fertilizer.

There never had been a more beautiful autumn than this. There was enough rain to wet down the soil for the winter, yet the Sundays were almost always clear. Fields and woods stretched away before the cottage, crimson and green as the frosts came on. Back of the cottage, forever gleaming through the scarlet of the autumn oaks, lay the lake, where duck and teal were beginning to lodge o' nights, in the rice-fringed nooks along the shore.

Lydia was happier than she had been since her mother's death. She took the long tramps to and from school, lunch box and school bag slung at her back, in a sort of ecstasy. She was inherently a child of the woods and fields. Their beauty thrilled her while it tranquilized her. Some of the weight of worry and responsibility that she had carried since her baby sister of two weeks had been turned over to her care left her.

Kent was enchanted with the new home. Football was very engrossing, yet he managed to get out for at least one visit a week. He and Lydia discovered a tiny spring in the bank above the lake and they began at once to dam it in and planned a great series of ditches and canals.

The doll's furniture was finished by October and Lydia began work on the doll's house.

One Saturday afternoon early in October she was established on the front steps with her carpentry when a surrey stopped at the gate. Little Patience, in a red coat, rolled to her feet. She had been collecting pebbles from the gravel walk.

"Mardy!" she screamed. "Baby's Mardy!" and started down the walk to meet Margery and her father.

"Darn it," said Lydia to herself. "Hello, Marg! How de do, Mr. Marshall."

"Well! Well!" Dave Marshall lifted the tails of his light overcoat and sat down on the steps. "Gone into house building, eh, Lydia? Did you do it all yourself? Gee! that's not such a bad job."

Lydia had the aptitude of a boy for tools. On one end of the cracker box was a V-shaped roof. There were two shelves within, making three floors, and Lydia was now hard at work with a chisel and jackknife hacking out two windows for each floor.

She stood, chisel in hand, her red coat sleeves rolled to her elbows, her curly hair wind-tossed, staring at Marshall half proudly, half defiantly.

Dave laughed delightedly. "Lydia, any time your father wants to sell you, I'm in the market." He looked at the nails hammered in without a crack or bruise in the wood, then laughed again.

"Get your and the baby's hats, Lydia. We stopped to take you for a ride."

Lydia's eyes danced, then she shook her head. "I can't! The bread's in baking and I'm watching it."

"Where's Lizzie?"

"She went in town to do the marketing! Darn it! Don't I have awful luck?"

Lydia sighed and looked from baby Patience and Margery, walking up and down the path, to Mrs. Marshall, holding the reins.

"Well, anyhow," she said, with sudden cheerfulness, "Mrs. Marshall'll be glad I'm not coming, and some day, maybe you'll take me when she isn't with you."

Dave started to protest, then the polite lie faded on his lips. Lydia turned her pellucid gaze to his with such a look of mature understanding, that he ended by nodding as if she had indeed been grown up, and rising, said, "Perhaps you're right. Good-by, my dear. Come, Margery."

Lydia stood with the baby clinging to her skirts. There were tears in her eyes. Sometimes she looked on the world that other children lived in, with the wonder and longing of a little beggar snub-nosed against the window of a French pastry shop.

John Levine came home with Amos that night to supper. Amos felt safe about an unexpected guest on Saturday nights for there was always a pot of baked beans, at the baking of which Lizzie was a master hand, and there were always biscuits. Lydia was expert at making these. She had taken of late to practising with her mother's old cook book and Amos felt as if he were getting a new lease of gastronomic life.

"Well," said Levine, after supper was finished, the baby was asleep and Lydia was established with a copy of "The Water Babies" he had brought her, "I had an interesting trip, this week."

Amos tossed the bag of tobacco to Levine. "Where?"

"I put in most of the week on horseback up on the reservation. Amos, the pine land up in there is something to dream of. Why, there's nothing like it left in the Mississippi Valley, nor hasn't been for twenty years. Have you ever been up there?"

Amos shook his head. "I've just never had time. It's a God-awful trip. No railroad, twenty-mile drive—"

Levine nodded. "The Indians are in awful bad shape up there. Agent's in it for what he can get, I guess. Don't know as I blame him. The sooner the Indians are gone the better it'll be for us and all concerned."

"What's the matter with 'em?" asked Lydia.

"Consumption—some kind of eye disease—starvation—"

The child shivered and her eyes widened.

"You'd better go on with the 'Water Babies,'" said John. "Has Tom fallen into the river yet?"

"No, he's just seen himself in the mirror," answered Lydia, burying her nose in the delectable tale again.

"It's a wonderful story," said Levine, his black eyes reminiscent.

"'Clear and cool, clear and cool,
By laughing shallow and dreaming pool;

•⁠•⁠•⁠•⁠•⁠•
Undefiled, for the undefiled;
Play by me, bathe in me, mother and child.'

It has some unforgettable verse in it. Well, as I was saying, Amos, that timber isn't going to stay up there and rot—because, I'm going to get it out of there!"

"How?" asked Amos.

"Act of Congress, maybe. Maybe a railroad will get a permit to go through, eh? There are several ways. We'll die rich, yet, Amos."

Amos pulled at his pipe and shook his head. "You will but I won't. It isn't in our blood."

"Shucks, Amos. Where's your nerve?"

Amos looked at Levine silently for a moment. Then he said huskily,

"My nerve is gone with Patience. And if she isn't in heaven, there isn't one, that's all."

Lydia looked up from her story with a quick flash of tragedy in her eyes.

"Well," said John, smiling at her gently, "if you don't want to be rich, Amos, Lydia does. I'll give her the cottage here, the first fifty thousand I make off of Indian pine lands."

"I swan," exclaimed Amos, "if you do that, I'll buy a cow and a pig and some chickens and I can pretty near make a living right here."

"You're foolish, Amos. This isn't New England. This is the West. All you've got to do is to keep your nerve, and any one with sense can make a killing. Opportunity screams at you."

"I guess she's always on my deaf side," said Amos.

"When I grow up," said Lydia, suddenly, "I'm going to buy a ship and sail to Africa and explore the jungles."

"I'll go with you, Lydia,", exclaimed Levine, "hanged if I don't sell my Indian lands for real money, and go right along with you."

"Mr. Marshall says 'like Hell you'll get some Indian lands,'" mused the child.

Both men exclaimed together, "What!"

Lydia was confused but repeated her conversation with Marshall.

"So that's the way the wind blows," said Levine.

"You don't think for a minute there's a banker in town without one hand on the reservation," said Amos. "Lydia, you're old enough now not to repeat conversations you hear at home. Don't you ever tell anybody the things you hear me and Mr. Levine talk over. Understand?" sharply.

"Yes, Daddy," murmured Lydia, flushing painfully.

"You don't have to jaw the child that way, Amos." Levine's voice was impatient. "Just explain things to her. Why do you want to humiliate her?"

Amos gave a short laugh. "Takes a bachelor to bring up kids. Run along to bed, Lydia."

"Lydia's not a kid. She's a grown-up lady in disguise," said Levine, catching her hand as she passed and drawing her to him. "Good night, young Lydia! If you were ten years older and I were ten years younger—"

Lydia smiled through tear-dimmed eyes. "We'd travel!" she said.

Cold weather set in early this year. Before Thanksgiving the lake was ice-locked for the winter. The garden was flinty, and on Thanksgiving Day, three inches of snow fell. The family rose in the dark. Amos, with his dinner pail, left the house an hour before Lydia and the sun was just flushing the brown tree tops when she waved good-by to little Patience, whose lovely little face against the window was the last thing she saw in the morning, the first thing she saw watching for her return in the dusk of the early winter evening.

Amos, always a little moody and a little restless, since the children's mother had gone to her last sleep, grew more so as the end of the year approached. It was perhaps a week before Christmas on a Sunday afternoon that he called Lydia to him. Patience was having her nap and Lizzie had gone to call on Mrs. Norton.

Lydia, who was re-reading "The Water Babies," put it down reluctantly and came to her father's side. Her heart thumped heavily. Her father's depressed voice meant just one thing—money trouble.

He was very gentle. He put his hand on the dusty yellow of her hair. He was very careful of the children's hair. Like many New England farm lads he was a jack of all trades. He clipped Lydia's hair every month himself.

"Your hair will be thick enough in another year, so's I won't have to cut it any more, Lydia. It's coming along thick as felt. Wouldn't think it was once thin, now."

Lydia eyed her father's care-lined face uneasily. Amos still hesitated.

"Where'd you get that dress, my dear?" he asked.

"Lizzie and I made it of that one of mother's," answered the child. "It isn't made so awful good, but I like to wear it, because it was hers."

"Yes, yes," said Amos absently.

The dress was a green serge, clumsily put together as a sailor suit, and the color fought desperately with the transparent blue of the little girl's eyes.

"Lydia," said her father abruptly. "You're a big girl now. You asked for skates and a sled for Christmas. My child, I don't see how you children are going to have anything extra for Christmas, except perhaps a little candy and an orange. That note with Marshall comes due in January. By standing Levine off on the rent, I can rake and scrape the interest together. It's hopeless for me even to consider meeting the note. What Marshall will do, I don't know. If I could ever get on my feet—with the garden. But on a dollar and a half a day, I swan—"

"No Christmas at all?" quavered Lydia. "Won't we even hang up our stockings?"

"If you'll be contented just to put a little candy in them. Come, Lydia, you're too big to hang up your stocking, anyhow."

Lydia left her father and walked over to the window. She pressed her face against the pane and looked back to the lake. The sun was sinking in a gray rift of clouds. The lake was a desolate plain of silvery gold touched with great shadows of purple where snow drifts were high. As she looked, the weight on her chest lifted. The trembling in her hands that always came with the mention of money lessened. The child, even as early as this, had the greatest gift that life bestows, the power of deriving solace from sky and hill and sweep of water.

"Anyhow," she said to her father, "I've still got something to look forward to. I've got the doll house to give baby, and Mr. Levine always gives me a book for Christmas."

"That's a good girl!" Amos gave a relieved sigh, then went on with his brooding over his unlighted pipe.

And after all, this Christmas proved to be one of the high spots of Lydia's life. She had a joyous 24th. All the morning she spent in the woods on the Norton farm with her sled, cutting pine boughs. As she trudged back through the farmyard, Billy Norton called to her.

"Oh, Lydia!"

Lydia stopped her sled against a drift and waited for Billy to cross the farmyard. He was a large, awkward boy several years older than Lydia. He seemed a very homely sort of person to her, yet she liked his face. He was as fair as Kent was dark. Kent's features were regular and clean-cut. Billy's were rough hewn and irregular, and his hair and lashes were straight and blond.

What Lydia could not at this time appreciate was the fact that Billy's gray eyes were remarkable in the clarity and steadiness of their gaze, that his square jaw and mobile mouth were full of fine promise for his manhood and that even at sixteen the framework of his great body was magnificent.

He never had paid any attention to Lydia before and she was bashful toward the older boys.

"Say, Lydia, want a brace of duck? A lot of them settled at Warm Springs last night and I've got more than I can use."

He leaned his gun against the fence and began to separate two birds from the bunch hanging over his shoulder.

Lydia began to breathe quickly. The Dudleys could not afford a special Christmas dinner.

"I—I don't know how I could pay you, Bill—"

"Who wants pay?" asked Bill, indignantly.

"I dasn't take anything without paying for it," returned Lydia, her eyes still on the ducks. "But I'd—I'd rather have those than a ship."

Billy's clear gaze wandered from Lydia's thin little face to her patched mittens and back again.

"Won't your father let you?" he asked.

"I won't let myself," replied the little girl.

"Oh!" said Billy, his gray eyes deepening. "Well, let me have the evergreens and you go back for some more. It'll save me getting Ma hers."

With one thrust of her foot Lydia shoved the fragrant pile of boughs into the snow. She tied the brace of duck to the sled and started back toward the wood, then paused and looked back at Billy.

"Thank you a hundred times," she called.

"It was a business deal. No thanks needed," he replied.

Lydia nodded and trudged off. The boy stood for a moment looking at the little figure, then he started after her.

"Lydia, I'll get that load of pines for you."

She tossed a vivid smile over her shoulder. "You will not. It's a business deal."

And Billy turned back reluctantly toward the barn.

In an hour Lydia was panting up the steps into the kitchen. Lizzie's joy was even more extreme than Lydia's. She thawed the ducks out and dressed them, after dinner, with the two children standing so close as at times seriously to impede progress.

"I'm lucky," said Lydia. "There isn't anybody luckier than I am or has better things happen to 'em than I do. I'd rather be me than a water baby."

"Baby not a water baby. Baby a duck," commented Patience, her hands full of bright feathers.

"Baby is a duck," laughed Lydia. "Won't Daddy be glad!"

Amos was glad. Plodding sadly home, he was greeted by three glowing faces in the open door as soon as his foot sounded on the porch. The base burner in the living-room was clear and glowing. The dining-room was fragrant with pine. He was not allowed to take off his overcoat, but was towed to the kitchen where the two birds, trussed and stuffed for the baking, were set forth on the table.

"I got 'em!" shouted Lydia. "I got 'em off Billy Norton for a load of pine. Christmas present for you, Daddy, from yours truly, Lydia!" She seized the baby's hands and the two did a dance round Amos, shouting, "Christmas present! Christmas present!" at the top of their lungs.

"Well! Well!" exclaimed Amos. "Isn't that fine! If Levine comes out to-morrow we can ask him to dinner, after all. Can't we, Lizzie?"

"You bet we can!" said Lizzie. "And look at this. I was going to keep it for a surprise. I made it by your wife's recipe."

She held an open Mason jar under Amos' nose.

"Mince meat!" he exclaimed. "Why, Lizzie, where'd you get the makings?"

"Oh, a bit here and a bit there for the last two months. Ain't it grand?" offering a smell to each of the children, who sniffed ecstatically.

When the baby was safely asleep, Lydia appeared with two stockings which she hung on chair backs by the stove in the living-room.

"I'm putting them up to hold the candy," she explained to her father, suggestively.

He rose obediently and produced half a dozen oranges and a bag of candy.

"Oh, that's gorgeous," cried Lydia, whose spirits to-night were not to be quenched. She brought in the doll house.

"See, Daddy," she said, with the pride of the master builder. "I colored it with walnut juice. And I found the wall paper in the attic."

Amos got down on his knees and examined the tiny rooms and the cigar box furniture. He chuckled delightedly. "I swan," he said, "if Patience doesn't want it you can give it to me!"

"I'm going to let Lizzie put the candy in the stockings," mused Lydia, "then I'll have that to look forward to. I'm going to bed right now, so morning will come sooner."

Alone with the stockings, into which Lizzie put the candy and oranges, Amos sat long staring at the base burner. Without, the moon sailed high. Wood snapping in the intense cold was the only sound on the wonder of the night. Something of the urgent joy and beauty of the Eve touched Amos, for he finally rose and said,

"Well, I've got two fine children, anyhow." Then he filled up the stoves for the night and went to bed.