GETTING READY FOR CHRISTMAS.
All the girls had a great deal of Christmas preparation. In the
evenings they were busy making their Christmas presents for their
friends at home, and Ruby was delighted when her Aunt Emma taught her
how to knit wristlets. She was very proud when she had finished the
first pair for her mother. They had pretty red edges and the rest was
knitted of chinchilla wool.
Perhaps you would laugh at Ruby if I should tell you quite how much she
admired them. When she first began to knit she wished that she need
not practise nor study nor do anything else, she enjoyed her new
occupation so much; and she carried her wristlet around in her pocket,
wrapped up in a piece of paper, so that it should not become soiled,
and every little while she would take it out and look at it lovingly.
She could imagine her mother's surprise and pleasure when she should
give them to her, and tell her that her little girl had knitted every
stitch of them for her. There were a great many stitches in the
wristlets, and before the first pair was finished Ruby had grown very
tired of knitting; but she was willing to persevere when she thought of
the pleasure it would be to give them to her mother as her very own
Christmas gift to her.
The pair she was making for her father did not take her nearly so long
to make, even although they were larger, for she had learned to knit so
much more quickly; and she was quite proud of the way in which the
needles flashed in her busy little fingers.
Ruby had brought her doll to school with her, and she found her great
company when she went up to her room, although she was such a busy
little maiden that she did not find much time in which to play with
her. Sometimes she would take her over to Miss Ketchum's room and
leave her for a few days, so that when she went there for a little
visit she would find her doll waiting for her, but generally Ruby had
so many other things in which she was interested that she did not find
time to play with her child.
But she was making something for Ruthy's Christmas present in which she
needed her doll's help very much. Aunt Emma was showing Ruby how to
crochet the dearest little baby sacque and hood, for a gift to Ruthy,
and as Ruthy's doll was just exactly the same size as Ruby's, Ruby
could try the sacque upon her own doll every now and then, and be quite
sure that she was getting it the right size.
It was a pretty little white sacque with a rose-colored border, and it
was so very pretty that Ruby made up her mind that after Christmas,
when she should not have so much to do, she would make another just
like it for her own doll. The hood was made to match the sacque, and
Ruby could hardly wait for Christmas to come when she thought of the
happiness her gifts would give. She was impatient to hear Ruthy
exclaim with admiration over the beautiful sacque and hood, and to see
how proud her father and mother would be when she slipped the wristlets
upon their hands, and told them that she had taken every stitch for
them with her own fingers.
But besides these home preparations, there was to be a little
entertainment given at Christmas by the scholars, to which some of the
people of the village were always invited, besides the friends of the
day-scholars, and those of the boarding-scholars who could come. This
entertainment was given the evening before the girls left for their
Christmas holidays, so very often their parents came a day earlier to
take them home, in order to be present at this entertainment.
It was given to show the improvement of the scholars during the term,
and all the girls had some part to take in it.
To some of them this was a great trial, but Ruby delighted in showing
off, and she was perfectly happy when she found that she was to take
part three times. It added to her pleasure to have her father write
that he would surely be there, for he was coming to bring her home, as
Aunt Emma was going somewhere else for her Christmas holidays. So Ruby
practised and studied with all her might, as happy and as good a little
girl as you could find anywhere, enjoying school-life more every day.
Ruby was to play the bass part in a duet with one of the older girls,
and she had taken lessons such a little while that this seemed a very
great thing to her. She was always ready to practise, so that she
should be sure to know her part perfectly, and she went about the house
humming the tune, until Aunt Emma declared laughingly that she fully
expected to hear Ruby singing it in her sleep.
Besides this, Ruby was to recite a piece alone, and to take part in a
dialogue; so you can see that she had quite a good deal to do. She
would have been quite willing to do more, however, and she looked
forward very eagerly to the evening of the entertainment.
The dialogue was quite a long one, and Ruby studied it every morning
while she was getting dressed, pretending that her aunt and the stove
were the other two characters in the piece. To be sure, neither of
them said anything, for Aunt Emma was busy getting dressed, and the
stove was silent, of course; but Ruby knew what they should say, for
she had studied the piece so much that she knew the other parts nearly
as well as her own; so she said for them what should be said when their
part came, and then repeated her own speeches. There was no danger
that Ruby would not be fully prepared when the great evening came.
It did not seem possible, now that she looked backward, that she had
really been away from home so long. Each day had been so full of
duties and pleasures, and had passed so rapidly, that they had gone
almost before Ruby knew that they had commenced, and now there were
only very few marks left to be scratched out upon the girls' calendars.
Ruby was very sorry for Agnes. Her mother lived so far away that it
was not possible for her to go home until the long summer vacation
came, so Agnes had to spend her Christmas at school.
The teachers did all they could to make the day a happy one for her,
and her mother sent her a box of presents, but still that was not of
course anything like a home Christmas, and it generally made Agnes feel
very badly when she heard the other girls talking about the good times
they expected to have at Christmas.
"It is n't only the parties and the Christmas trees and the good
times," she said to Ruby one day. "It is being away from mother that
is the hardest part of it all. I always put her picture on the table
when I open the box and look at the presents she has sent me, and try
to pretend that she is giving them to me; but it is n't of much use. I
know all the time that she is hundreds of miles away, and that she
wants to see me just as much as I want to see her."
It was just one week before Christmas that a very beautiful idea came
into Ruby's mind, and she was so pleased that she jumped up and spun
around like a top, and caught Agnes by the waist and made her spin
around, too, until both the little girls tumbled down in a heap on the
floor.
"Why, Ruby, are you crazy?" asked Agnes, laughingly. They had been
sitting before the fire in Miss Ketchum's room, eating chestnuts and
talking about the evening of the entertainment, and both of the girls
had been quiet for a little while, Agnes thinking how much she would
like to have her mother at the school that night, and Ruby thinking of
the pleasure with which she would watch her father while she was
reciting her piece, when all at once she jumped up in this state of
excitement.
[Illustration: READING THE INVITATION TO AGNES (missing from book)]
"What is the matter?" asked Agnes again; but Ruby would n't tell her.
"It is just the most beautiful idea in all the world," she exclaimed;
"but it is something about you, Agnes, and I don't want to tell you
until I am quite sure how it is going to turn out. No, you need n't
ask me. I shall not tell you one single word of it. I can keep a
secret when I want to, and I don't mean to tell you this one. I will
only tell you that if it turns out all right you will like it as much
as I do, I think. Oh, I am so full of it that I must go over and tell
Aunt Emma about it; but you must not ask me to tell you, for indeed I
will not."
And Ruby did not, although you may imagine that Agnes was very curious
to know what it could be over which Ruby was so excited, and which
concerned herself.
Ruby would only answer, "Wait and see."
It had occurred to her that perhaps her mother would be willing to let
her invite Agnes to come home with her for her Christmas holidays.
Ruby knew that her mother was very much better now, and she was almost
sure that she would not feel as if company would tire her too much.
Ruby and Agnes had been such friends, and Ruby had told Agnes so much
about her home and mother and Ruthy, that she was sure that next best
to going to her own home and seeing her own mother, would be going to
Ruby's home and spending Christmas with Ruby's mother.
Aunt Emma thought that it was a very nice plan, and Ruby wrote that
very afternoon to ask her mother about it.
It seemed to the impatient little girl as if the answer would never
come; and every day she watched when the mail came to see if there was
a letter for her; but in three days it came, and she was delighted to
find that a little letter was enclosed for Agnes, giving her a very
cordial invitation to come home with Ruby to spend her Christmas
holidays.
Ruby's mother was very much pleased with the idea, and glad that her
little daughter had thought of inviting her lonely schoolmate home with
her; and if anything could have made Ruby happier than she was already,
it was her mother's approval of her plan.
You may be sure that Agnes was delighted. It seemed almost too good to
be true, at first; and when she read the kind letter from Ruby's
mother, and Miss Chapman gave her permission to accept the invitation,
she began to look forward to the holidays quite as eagerly as any of
the other girls.
Besides the pleasure with which Ruby looked forward to Christmas on her
own account, she looked forward to the pleasure she expected to give
others, and I need not tell you that that is the secret of the greatest
happiness in all the wide world. And so the days flew on, each one
bringing the joyous home-going nearer.