"And I want a horsey, and a wagon to hatchen on behind," Allyn shouted.
"And I must have a new sled, and I want a set of furs and a canary
bird," Phebe clamored.
"Is that all?" Hubert inquired blandly. "Why not ask for a wedding gown
and a pink elephant while you are about it, Babe? Don't be modest. I
know what Teddy is going to have."
"Oh, what?" Theodora looked up from her game of euchre with Billy, who,
promoted to his chair again, was spending the evening with the
McAlisters.
"She'd better have a chunk of ice, to cool her off when she gets mad,"
suggested Phebe with sudden asperity, as she thought of a recent passage
at arms with her elder sister.
"Phebe!" Mrs. McAlister's tone was ominous, and Phebe subsided,
grumbling, while her mother rose to put Allyn to bed.
Allyn retreated to Hubert's knee and pressed his rosy cheek against that
of his brother.
"No, mamma," he urged. "Can't Phebe be tendooed first?"
"Allynesque for attended to," Theodora explained to Billy, while her
mother dislodged the child from his place of refuge and marched him out
of the room. "But does it seem possible that Christmas comes, next
week?"
"Well, yes, I think it does. This year has been long enough to make over
into a dozen ordinary ones. Let's see, when is Christmas?"
"Why, don't you know? Christmas is our great day of the year, and we
count the days for months ahead. This year, it will be an extra jolly
one, for we want to show mamma our ways." This from Hubert, who sat with
his elbow on the arm of Billy's chair, superintending his play.
"What do you do?"
"Just what everybody else does, I suppose; give presents and make a row
generally."
"Hubert, what will Billy think of us?" Hope interposed. "It's this way:
mamma, our own mother, always said that Christmas was the day when we
all should be children together, and play plays and have a grand frolic.
Years ago, when Hu and Teddy and I were little bits of children, we
began having our basket, and we have kept it up ever since."
"We do all the things, jokes and presents and all, in bundles," Theodora
said, taking up the story in her eagerness; "and we put them all in this
basket. It is an old clothes-basket, large as the house and broken, but
we never change it. And then we draw them out, one at a time."
"It's covered, you know, and we just fish under the cover, so as not to
see what comes. They used to begin with me; but Allyn is the baby, and
has the first chance now." In her interest, Phebe quite forgot to resent
it when Theodora pulled her down into her lap.
Billy sat looking from one to another of the group, wondering to see the
faces brighten and grow eager as the talk ran on.
"It sounds good fun," he said rather wishfully, as soon as there was a
pause. "I suppose it's because there are such a lot of you."
"The more the better, of course," Hope said. "We always have Susan and
James come in to look on, and even Mulvaney has his new ribbon and a
bone. He has learned to know the basket, and he lies down beside it as
soon as it is brought in to be filled."
"When do you do it?"
"Christmas eve," Hubert answered. "We never could stand it till
Christmas day. We always rush through supper, Christmas eve, to be ready
as soon as we can. You should see our house when we get everything out
of the basket."
"I wish I could."
"What do you do?" Phebe demanded.
"Why, we give presents at breakfast; that's all. Of course it will be
different, this year. Papa was here, last Christmas. He gave me my watch
then."
"Oh!" Phebe became round-eyed with admiration. "Did he give you that? I
should think you would miss him."
Hope came to the rescue.
"It will be lonely, this year. I remember how it was, after mamma died.
We didn't want to have any Christmas; but papa said she would rather we
kept up the old ways, so we did just as we always had done."
"I wish we did things the way you do." Billy pushed his hair impatiently
away from his face. "You don't know how it seems to a fellow to be
alone. It is no sort of fun."
"Adopt us," Theodora suggested, laughing.
Billy flashed at her a swift glance which told, plainly as words, how
gladly he would carry out her suggestion.
Passing through the hall, Mrs. McAlister had heard the children's talk.
A little later, she knocked at the door of her husband's office. The
doctor pushed aside the sheets of the essay he was writing for a medical
journal, and rose to greet his wife.
"Well, Bess, the sanctum is glad to see you."
"Am I interrupting?" she asked, as she sat down by the table.
"Not a bit. You never do."
"So glad, for I want to talk, Jack."
"What now? Is Phebe in mischief, or is Teddy proving obstreperous?"
"Neither; it's only this." And she repeated the substance of the
children's conversation. "Now are you ready to do some missionary work,
Jack?"
"Of course; anything you like. What is it?"
"May Jessie and Will come to your Christmas eve?"
"Ours," he corrected gently.
"No, yours. You know I've never been here for it, and it is all new to
me. I don't want to crowd your good time; but the boy is so lonely."
"Have him, of course. The Savins is large enough to hold a few more, and
he needs all the fun he can get," the doctor said heartily. "There's
only one thing I am afraid of."
His wife looked up quickly.
"I thought that all over before I came to you, Jack; but I have known
Jessie longer than you have, and I know she won't misunderstand us. She
knows we can't give expensive presents, and she will care, as we do, for
the fun and the Christmas spirit. I know she will be glad to come, if
only for Billy's sake."
But Mrs. Farrington demurred a little, the next day, when the plan was
suggested to her.
"I have just promised Will to have you all over here," she said. "Still,
if you all will promise to come here for Christmas dinner and a bran pie
afterwards, Billy and I will come to your basket. We are so lonely that
it is a deed of charity to take us in."
For the next week, mystery lurked in every corner of the McAlister
house. With three novices to be trained in their Christmas rite, Hope
and Theodora and Hubert felt that this basket must surpass all those of
previous years, and they ransacked their brains, their house, and the
shops for the jokes and nonsensical offerings which added spice to their
simple presents. If the Christmas spirit of happiness and good-will were
the true test, the McAlisters lived up to the full tradition of the day.
Gifts simple and elaborate, hoary jokes and brand-new ones, quips and
cranks of every description, were enclosed in the bundles which went
into the shabby old basket, and the only clue to the possible contents
of the bundles lay in the fact that, the older the joke, the more fresh
and dainty was its outward disguise.
The basket stood in a deep bay-window; beside it on an easel was the
portrait of the children's own mother, placed there and wreathed in
Christmas greens by Mrs. McAlister's own hands. Old Susan had told her
that it had stood there in past years, and, that afternoon, the doctor
had come in, to find her bending over to wreathe it with holly and
trailing pine.
"It's like you, Bess," he said. "The children will be so happy. They
felt that Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without this."
Supper was a hurried meal that night, and it was still early when they
gathered in the parlor, with Mulvaney beside the basket and Susan in
the doorway, to wait for their guests.
"Oh, I can't wait," Phebe wailed. "I know such lots of things in there.
I put in four bundles for Hu, and seven for Allyn, and two for papa,
only one's broken, and two for Teddy."
"Let me see." Hubert counted on his fingers. "I put in six for Ted, no,
seven, and four for Hope, and nine for Allyn."
"And me?" Phebe pranced impatiently.
"Oh, Babe, I forgot you."
"Hush, Babe; there's Billy's chair," Hope said, endeavoring to suppress
her young sister.
"Did you know Patrick brought over a bundle, Hu?" Theodora whispered. "I
saw mamma slying it into the house. 'Twas a big one, too."
"Really?" Hubert tried to look as innocent as if Billy had not consulted
him about Theodora's Christmas gift.
"Yes, I'm so glad now that I hemstitched that handkerchief. It is fairly
covered with my gore where I pricked myself; but he won't be critical, I
hope."
The babel of greeting and chatter was hushed, as Hope took her seat at
the piano and the children gathered around her to sing their favorite
carol. The last note had scarcely died away when Allyn, at a signal from
Hubert, gave a joyous shriek and plunged upon the basket.
"One at a time," Hope cautioned him; "and bring the bundle to sister, so
she can read the writing on it."
The first package chanced to contain his much-desired horsey, and he
retired to a corner to embrace it, while Phebe and then Theodora took
their turns at drawing.
"Draw for me, please," Billy asked Theodora, when his turn came.
"Not a bit of it. You must do your part." And she had whisked him across
the room and landed him beside the basket, before he could realize her
intention.
For two hours, the fun was fast and furious. Mulvaney, on the floor in a
nest of papers, was wrestling with a vast bone, Mrs. Farrington was
admiring a bit of Hope's dainty handiwork, and Hubert was trying hard to
realize that at last he was the proud owner of a watch. Everyone was
happy, and Hope and Theodora congratulated themselves upon the success
of their Christmas frolic.
"It's your turn to draw, Billy." And Theodora rolled him across the
floor to the fast-emptying basket.
"Bah! I can't reach it. Get the one in the corner, Ted. It's a big
square one."
"Is this it?"
"Yes." Billy took it and read the label. _Theodora, with love from
Babe._
"Why, Babe dear, you gave me the gloves."
Phebe flushed.
"It's probably some grind on you, Teddy," Hubert suggested, as his
sister tore away the wrappers.
Inside was a box, then another. Phebe smiled in conscious satisfaction,
while Theodora opened one layer after another of the papers within and
at last drew out a long flexible bundle.
"Phebe, you dear, it is the new belt I've been wanting," she said.
Phebe began to look rather uneasy.
"Wait and see," she advised. "It may not be as nice as you think it's
going to be."
With eager hands, Theodora unrolled the tissue papers, while the others
gathered round to see what was inside. Then there came a sudden hush of
surprise and consternation. Out from the papers had slipped a long,
soft braid of brown hair, and, with a startled sob, Theodora had buried
her face in her hands. The next instant, Hubert's hand descended on
Phebe's cheek with a ringing blow.
For a few moments, it seemed that the evening was to end in dismal
failure. Then Mrs. Farrington, with her arm about Theodora's waist,
marched her across the room to the basket to renew the drawing, and soon
the little incident was apparently forgotten. Later, when the merriment
was subsiding, Mrs. Farrington missed Theodora and went in search of
her. She found her in the library, standing alone before the open fire.
"It was too bad, dear," Mrs. Farrington said. "Phebe didn't realize what
she was doing, of course; but it was hard for you. But I want to thank
you for the pleasant evening and for the pleasant months Billy has had
with you. This little package was to go in the pie, to-morrow; but I
wanted instead to give it to you when we were alone, so I could say to
you how I appreciate all you have done for my boy."
And Theodora, as she looked at the little sapphire on her finger, felt
that not all the Phebes in creation could spoil her merry Christmas.
A week later, she went racing across the lawn to the Farringtons', with
a long brown bundle over her shoulder.
"Let me in quick, Patrick," she cried, as she dashed through the door.
"Happy New Year, Billy! I've brought you a New Year's present. I said I
must be the one to bring it, and papa is coming over in a few minutes to
teach you to use it." And, with a clatter and a bang, she cast a pair of
crutches on the floor at Billy's feet.