Chapter II: Part 2

“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.

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.”

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

FICTION WORTH READING

_NORMAN DUNCAN_

The Bird Store Man

An Old-Fashioned Story. Illustrated, 12mo, boards, net 75c.

By the sheer wizardry of his art, the author illumines a gray, shabby
neighborhood with genial light, and makes of a dingy bird store a
temple of high romance. What happens to Timothy Twitter, the cheery
old bird dealer; to a wonderful dog Alexander; to the little girl who
owns him and her veteran grandfather, is related with a whimsical
tenderness few writers since Dickens have been able to employ. There
is many a long chuckle awaiting the readers of THE BIRD STORE MAN,
and not a few tugs at the heart.

_CLARA E. LAUGHLIN_

_Author of
“Everybody’s Lonesome”_

Everybody’s Birthright

A Vision of Jeanne d’Arc. Illustrated, 12mo, cloth, net 75c.

“A tender, heart-reaching and heart-finding story. The aspirations of
the average young girl are too little understood. Miss Laughlin not
only understands them, but she provides something for them to feed
on. In all, she has contrived to put a lot of thoughts on interesting
problems into a story that is full of the human touches that gives
life to a book. It should add another to that series of classics for
girls which have made Miss Laughlin the friend of girls and parents
as well.”—_Norma Bright Carson._

_WINIFRED ARNOLD_

_Author of “Mis’ Basset’s
Matrimony Bureau”_

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 Mary Christie 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
as sweet and jolly a little story as anybody has either written or
read in many a long year.

_NORMAN HINSDALE PITMAN_

_Author of
“The Lady Elect,” etc._

A Chinese Christmas Tree

Illustrated by Liu Hsing-p’u. Boards, net 50c.

Here is a Christmas story that is “different”—scenes laid in China,
real Chinese children romping through its chapters, and illustrated
by quaint pictures drawn by a real Chinese artist. Those who
gratefully remember this author’s fine story “The Lady Elect,” will
not be surprised to find a vein of mellow wisdom, tempered with warm,
glowing sunshine.

_CYRUS TOWNSEND BRADY_

The Little Angel of Canyon Creek

Illustrated, 12mo, cloth, net $1.25.

A cracking good story of the bad old days of the Western Colorado
mining camps—days when a man’s chances of returning to his cabin
o’nights depended very largely on the despatch with which he could
bring his gun to the “draw.” Into one of these lawless camps comes
little Olaf, a homeless wanderer from the East. His advent, followed
by that of the Morrisons, marks a new era for Canyon Creek which
ends in the “cleaning up” of the entire town. Dr. Brady gives us a
captivating tale, brim-full of the vim and color incident to days and
places where life was cheap, and virtue both rare and dear.

_MARIETTA HOLLEY_

“_Samantha Allen_”

Josiah Allen on the Woman Question

Illustrated, 16mo, cloth, net $1.00.

A new volume from the pen of Miss Holley, marked by such quaint
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who read it will be bound to feel better, as indeed they should, for
they will have done some hearty laughing, and have been ‘up against’
some bits of striking philosophy delivered with point, vigor, and
chuckling humor. All Josiah Allen’s opinions are wittily, pithily
expressed, causing the whole book to fairly bubble with homely,
fun-provoking wisdom.

_J. J. BELL_

_Author of “Wee Macgreegor,”
“Oh! Christina!” etc._

The Misadventures of Joseph

12mo, cloth, net $1.00.

A characteristic story in which the author displays unusual ability
to portray with quiet, humorous touch, the idiosyncrasies of Scottish
life and character. Through a series of highly diverting chapters
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seeming dilemma, by the exercise of a kindly charity and the best
attributes of a man.

_THEODORA PECK_

_Author of
“The Sword of Dundee”_

White Dawn

A Legend of Ticonderoga. Illustrated, net $1.25.

A real romance, redolent of love and war. The plot, for the most
part, is laid in the beautiful Champlain valley, in the days when
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continent. Miss Peck simply packs her book with action, and depicts
scene after scene which literally resound with the din of battle and
the clash of arms.

_S. R. CROCKETT_

_Author of “The Stickit Minister,”
“The Raiders,” etc._

Silver Sand

A Romance of Old Galloway. Cloth, net $1.25.

“In this romance published only a few days after his death, we find
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and giving us an even finer display of his powers than when he
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best things he ever did. Some of the characters here portrayed are
among the best of his many creations, with an even added depth and
tenderness.”—_Pall Mall Gazette._

_CAROLINE ABBOT STANLEY_

Dr. Llewellyn and His Friends

Illustrated, 12mo, cloth, net $1.25.

Mrs. Stanley’s new book is a human chronicle of absorbing interest.
Humor and pathos of a rare order alternate in its pages, together
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The Man of the Desert

Illustrated, 12mo, cloth, net $1.25.

The author of “The Best Man,” “Marcia Schuyler,” etc., enjoys no mean
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which “The Man of the Desert” fully maintains. Her latest book tells
the love-story of a daughter of luxury and a plain man facing his
duty and doing his work on the home mission field of the West. Every
reader of this charming story will be made to rejoice in the happy
triumph over difficulties which gives to these young people the
crowning joy of life, the union of kindred souls.

_THURLOW FRASER_

The Call of The East

A Romance of Far Formosa. Illustrated, 12mo, cloth, net $1.25.

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and native worth, of another’s baseness and treachery; some thrilling
incidents of the French invasion of Formosa; a satisfying picture of
the great pioneer missionary Mackay, and a love-story as old as Eden,
yet as fresh as the dews of the morning.

_CAROLINE ABBOT STANLEY_

_Author of
“The Master of the Oaks”_

The Keeper of the Vineyard

A Tale of the Ozarks. Illustrated, $1.25 net.

“When the Revells publish a novel there can be no question as to its
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and charms us by the descriptions of life near the heart of
nature.”—_Watchman Examiner._

_NORMAN HINSDALE PITMAN_

The Lady Elect

A Chinese Romance. Illustrated by Chinese artists. 12mo, cloth, net $1.25.

“A story that depicts, in all its fascination, the old
China—Something of the knowledge of what may be lies at the heart
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‘arranged’ marriage, and of the young man she loved. A romance with
all the plot, situation and charm of a modern popular love-story
makes the book irresistible.”—_Norma Bright Carson, Editor of Book
News._

_RICHARD S. HOLMES_

Bradford Horton: Man

A novel. 12mo, cloth, net $1.25.

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presentation of its distinctly human characters.”—_Presbyterian of
the South._

_MARIETTA HOLLEY_

(_Josiah Allen’s Wife_)

Samantha on the Woman Question

Illustrated, 12mo, cloth, net $1.00.

“This is the book we have been waiting for. What Samantha doesn’t
know, isn’t worth knowing—will throw a little humor on the situation
which is becoming too intense. We hope it may have a wide circulation
in England, for Samantha who believes in suffrage, does not believe
in dynamite, gunpowder and mobs.”—_Examiner._

_CHARLES H. LERRIGO_

Doc Williams

A Tale of the Middle West. Illustrated, net $1.25.

“The homely humor of the old doctor and his childlike faith in
‘the cure’ is so intensely human that he captures the sympathy of
the layman at once—a sympathy that becomes the deepest sort of
interest.”—_Topeka Capital._