Margaret Brackett turned her head petulantly from side to side on the
pillow. "I'm sure I don't see why this had to come to me now," she
moaned.
Polly Ann Brackett, who had been hastily summoned to care for her
stricken relative, patted the pillow hopefully.
"Sho! now, Aunt Margaret, don't take on so. Just lie still and rest.
You 're all beat out. That's what's the matter."
The sick woman gave an impatient sigh.
"But, Polly Ann, it's only the 22d. I ought not to be that--yet! It
never comes until the 26th, and I 'm prepared for it then. Sarah Bird
comes Christmas Day, you know."
Polly Ann's jaw dropped. Her eyes stared frankly.
"Sarah Bird!" she cried. "You don't mean you engaged her beforehand--a
_nurse_! That you knew you 'd need her!"
"Of course. I do every year. Polly Ann, don't stare so! As if
Christmas did n't use every one up--what with the shopping and all the
planning and care it takes!"
"But I thought Christmas was a--a pleasure," argued Polly Ann feebly;
"something to enjoy. Not to--to get sick over."
"Enjoy--yes, though not to be taken lightly, understand," returned the
elder woman with dignity. "It is no light thing to select and buy
suitable, appropriate gifts. And now, with half of them to be yet tied
up and labeled, here I am, flat on my back," she finished with a groan.
"Can't I do it? Of course I can!" cried Polly Ann confidently.
The sick woman turned with troubled eyes.
"Why, I suppose you'll have to do it," she sighed, "as long as I can't.
Part of them are done up, anyway; but there's John's family and Mary
and the children left. John's are in the middle drawer of the bureau
in the attic hall, and Mary's are in the big box near it. You'll know
them right away when you see them. There's paper and strings and
ribbons, and cards for the names, besides the big boxes to send them
in. Seems as if you ought to do it right, only--well, you know how
utterly irresponsible and absent-minded you are sometimes."
"Nonsense!" scoffed Polly Ann. "As if I could n't do up a parcel of
presents as well as you! And I'll prove it, too. I'll go right up
now," she declared, rising to her feet and marching out of the room.
In the attic hall Polly Ann found the presents easily. She knew which
was for which, too; she knew Margaret and her presents of old. She did
not need the little bits of paper marked, "For Mary," "For Tom," "For
John," "For Julia," to tell her that the woolen gloves and thick socks
went into Mary's box, and the handsomely bound books and the fine
lace-edged handkerchief into John's.
Mary, as all the Bracketts knew, was the poor relation that had married
shiftless Joe Hemenway, who had died after a time, leaving behind him a
little Joe and three younger girls and a boy. John, if possible even
better known to the Brackett family, was the millionaire Congressman to
whom no Brackett ever failed to claim relationship with a proudly
careless "He's a cousin of ours, you know, Congressman Brackett is."