LITMIR.BIZ

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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.

CHAPTER IV

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