CHRISTMAS AT HOME
Whatever it was Dot wanted to tell Santa Claus, he was not to hear it
this Christmas. When the four little Blossoms woke Christmas morning,
it was already light and they tumbled downstairs to find the four
stockings bulging with knobby packages. They made so much noise that
they awoke everyone else in the house and Norah served breakfast a half
hour earlier than usual.
“Could I open one bundle, Mother?” Twaddles kept saying. “Could I open
one bundle? Just that little square one. That doesn’t look exciting,
Mother.”
“That little square one happens to be marked with my name, young man,”
said Father Blossom, “and I don’t intend to have any surprises spoiled
ahead of time.”
The Blossom family never opened their Christmas gifts till after
breakfast Christmas morning. The children had their stockings and that
was supposed to keep them contented till it came time to open the
parcels; but often they thought they just could not wait another minute
after the first peep at the little mountain of white paper packages
under the tree.
“I declare, Twaddles, you remind me of a bumble bee on a hot griddle,”
said Uncle Dave laughingly. “I never saw anyone in such a hurry to get
through his breakfast; now I call these hot rolls first-rate and I need
another cup of coffee, please, Margaret,” he added to Mother Blossom.
“Dave, I think you’re real mean,” scolded Aunt Miranda, but she spoke
so gently, no one thought she really meant to scold. “How can you sit
there and drink another cup of that hot coffee when you know these
children are counting the minutes till they can open their presents? It
isn’t good for you to drink that much coffee, anyway.”
“All right, I won’t take the second cup,” said Uncle Dave meekly. “I
seem to have had my breakfast, then, Margaret.”
“May we be ’scused, Mother?” shouted the four little Blossoms. “Please,
Mother? Is it time to open the things now, Mother?”
Mother Blossom laughed and said they would all go into the living-room
and look at their presents. And in ten minutes that beautiful, orderly
room was a sea of white tissue paper and seals and string and pink and
blue cotton. How Aunt Miranda laughed when she unwrapped one canvas
glove!
“I couldn’t afford to buy two of them,” Dot explained, “because I had
to buy a present for Mother and Daddy, too. But you can use one hand,
can’t you, Aunt Miranda?”
“Why, of course, I can,” Aunt Miranda said heartily. “I’ll wear it when
I’m fussing with my garden this spring, Dot, and think of you every
time I wear it.”
Aunt Miranda had knitted a lovely scarf of brushed wool with mittens
to match for each of the children, and a tam-o-shanter hat for Meg and
one for Dot. The four little Blossoms were delighted with these, as
they might well be. Dot’s set was of scarlet wool, Meg’s was a delicate
blue, Bobby had brown and Twaddles’ set was a light buff color. Uncle
Dave had whittled each of the boys a ship, and for Meg he had made a
little chain of curious wooden beads and another smaller chain for Dot.
It took a long time to see all the presents for there were a good many
of them and everyone wanted to show his gifts to everyone else. Sam was
very proud of the little diary Meg had given him and he promised to
write in it every day; Norah laughed till she cried over the cologne
bottle Bobby gave her for he had pulled the cork out to smell of it
after he got it home and the cologne had either evaporated or had been
spilled and the tiny bottle was quite empty. But as Norah said, when
she thanked Bobby, it still smelled exactly like cologne. Twaddles had
bought a pocket-knife with six blades for Uncle Dave and not one of
them would open. But Uncle Dave declared he liked that kind of a knife
because it always looked well and yet there was no danger that he would
cut himself.
Each of the four little Blossoms, with much panting and counting of
their pennies, had managed to buy Father Blossom a present and another
for Mother.
“I’m so overcome I don’t know how to say ‘thank you,’” announced Father
Blossom when he had Bobby’s ash tray on the table beside him, Meg’s red
stickpin in his tie, Dot’s paper weight on his desk in the den and the
handkerchief Twaddles had given him in his pocket.
Mother Blossom was delighted with the cup and saucer Meg gave her and
she declared that the pin tray Bobby had chosen for her was exactly
what she needed for her dresser and that Dot must have known she wanted
another glass dish. But when she came to Twaddles’ present Mother
Blossom looked puzzled.
“What in the world can this be?” she said, unwrapping it slowly.
They all crowded around her while she undid the paper and when she
held up an enameled pot, such as Norah used to boil the potatoes in,
everyone looked surprised. Except Twaddles.
“Isn’t it nice?” he urged. “Course it has a little hole in it, but
that was why I could buy it for ten cents. It used to be thirty cents,
Mother. Don’t you like it?”
“Why, Twaddles, of course I do,” said Mother Blossom, kissing him. “I
like it very much and you must have loved me dearly to buy such a large
kettle. I’ll find some way to use it, even if there is a little hole in
it.”
After all the presents had been seen, and the four little Blossoms had
so many toys and games that Father Blossom said folks must have made
a mistake and thought they didn’t have a single thing to play with
before, Mother Blossom reminded them that they were to feed the birds.
The children did this every year, tying pieces of suet to long strings
and hanging these in the trees where the birds could easily find them.
They also sprinkled plenty of bread-crumbs in dry sheltered places, off
the ground so that no cats should bother the birds at dinner.
“The snow’s awful deep,” said Bobby, stamping in from helping to feed
the birds. “Couldn’t we go coasting, Mother?”
“After dinner, dear,” replied Mother Blossom. “If you went now, you
would have to hurry back. After dinner you may all go and wear your new
scarfs and mittens, too.”
Christmas dinner was a wonderful affair, with a huge brown turkey and
a plum pudding surrounded by a wreath of holly. Philip and Annabel
Lee had an extra good meal, too, in the garage where they preferred
to spend most of their time. Philip seemed to feel that he was really
Sam’s dog and Annabel Lee liked to sleep on the old fur robe Sam kept
especially for her.
“So you’re going coasting, hey?” said Uncle Dave, when after dinner
the four little Blossoms began to bundle themselves up and Bobby went
down cellar and brought up the sleds. “Did you ever hear the story,
Meg, about the little girl who coasted into a snow bank and wasn’t seen
again till the next spring?”
“Oh, no,” answered Meg, her eyes round with wonder. “Was she all dead,
Uncle Dave?”
“Mercy, I should hope not!” said Uncle Dave, his eyes twinkling more
than ever. “You see, it was spring the next day by the calendar,
though there was snow on the ground.”
“Dave, you shouldn’t tease the children,” reproved Aunt Miranda, coming
into the hall and knitting as she walked. “They won’t know, pretty
soon, when you are in earnest and when you’re not.”
“I like to hear stories,” said Meg, pulling her tam down over her
yellow hair. “Don’t you want to come coasting, Uncle Dave?”
“Well, no, I’d rather stay home and smoke,” replied Uncle Dave
placidly. “I’ve had my day coasting. When I was the age of Dot, my
father made me a sled and I went up on the roof and coasted off the
woodshed and was in bed a week.”
“I wouldn’t be putting such notions in the heads of children, Dave,”
said Aunt Miranda, gently. “They’ll be wanting to coast off the roof
next.”
“No, we can’t,” said Twaddles sadly. “We haven’t any woodshed.”
The four little Blossoms had two sleds, just alike; one for Meg and Dot
and the other for Bobby and Twaddles. Wayne Place Hill was the finest
coasting spot in Oak Hill and when they reached it this afternoon,
they found a crowd of girls and boys already enjoying the fun. Some of
them had new Christmas sleds and some, like the four little Blossoms,
had sleds that were almost new and some had old, old sleds that were
battered and scarred and tied up with rope to make them last. And,
strange to say, the children who had the oldest sleds seemed to be
having as good a time as the ones with brand-new shiny sleds.
Meg was immediately surrounded by little girls who wanted her to “take
us down.” Meg was only six years old, but she could steer a sled as
well as Bobby and her small friends knew it.
“Don’t take Hester,” said Marion Green to Meg. “She always screams and
makes folks think she is hurt. And once she grabbed my brother and
pulled him right over backward.”
Marion Green and Hester Scott were both in Meg’s class at school.
Hester was a fat little girl and generally smiling. But now she looked
ready to cry.
“I haven’t been down the hill once this whole afternoon,” she declared.
“I’ll lend Dot my sled, Meg, if you’ll take me down. And I won’t scream
a tiny bit, honestly I won’t.”
“All right, I’ll take you,” said Meg briefly. “Let Dot have your sled
and she can play round with it till I come back. She can’t coast down
alone either.”
Hester knelt on the sled behind Meg, and Bobby obligingly gave them a
send-off push. The moment she felt the rush of air, Hester forgot her
promise.
“Stop it!” she begged. “Oh, Meg, please stop. I can’t breathe! Ow!
Somebody stop us! Ow, we’re going to hit that red sled! Oh, Meg,
please, please----”
She flung her arms around Meg’s neck and leaned back with her whole
weight. Up came Meg’s hands, the sled shot to one side and the two
girls tumbled off into the snow.
“I told you so! I told you so!” Marion kept saying as she ran down
toward them, and Dot and Twaddles and Bobby came running, too. “She
always does that.”
“I don’t either!” protested Hester. “But I couldn’t breathe or
anything, and I was scared.”
“That’s just like a girl,” said Fred Baldwin in disgust. “They always
get scared.”
“Who always gets scared?” asked Stanley Reeves, one of the high school
boys, hearing this sentence as he was passing the group on his way up
hill.
“Why, I don’t think girls are all like that at all,” said Stanley, when
he had heard Fred’s explanation. “I tell you what we’ll do--we’ll clear
the hill and let the girls have a race. Any girl who is willing to
steer her own sled may enter. Come on back to the top and we’ll settle
this little matter.”
Fred Baldwin walked beside Bobby.
“Say, Bobby,” he said in an undertone. “Palmer and Bertrand and I want
to see you about something. Can you come over tomorrow?”
“Is it about the fire?” asked Bobby in quick alarm. “Has Mr. Bennett
said anything more?”
“Yes, he has,” admitted Fred. “I can’t tell you now. You come over to
my house tomorrow morning.”
“You come over to our house,” suggested Bobby. “Bring the boys. I said
I’d help the children start a snowman in the yard. We can go out in the
garage and talk and nobody will hear us.”
Fred said they would come and then he hurried on to watch the coasting
race. But Bobby’s pleasure in the sport was spoiled. He began to worry
again about the fire in the carpenter shop. What had Mr. Bennett been
saying?