“Here’s a package for you, Hime,” yelled the burly conductor. “Brown,
with a red label on top. I’ll just set it here till you haul down the
mail bags.”
The station-master’s lantern stopped bobbing for a moment.
“All right. Set it down inside,” he shouted, over his shoulder. “Snow’s
so deep to-night I might lose it on the platform.”
The little girl in the brown coat and the hat with the big red bow on
top, giggled delightedly.
“He’ll think it’s lost sure enough,” she said. “’Twould be a fine April
Fool if it wasn’t so near Christmas, wouldn’t it?”
“A-number-one,” agreed the big conductor, appreciatively. “Well,
good-bye, sissy; the train’s moving. Hope you’ll have a fine time.”
“Oh, I shall,” responded the little girl confidently. “I always do.
Good-bye. Oh, look! He’s coming!”
Down the platform bobbed the station-master’s lantern, the centre of a
moving vortex of big, fluffy snowflakes. After the darkness outside,
even the dimly lighted little waiting room seemed dazzling as he
stepped inside, dragging the mail bags behind him.
“Where’s the bundle Sim Coles left?” he demanded of the little group
assembled around the tall, whitewashed stove, slinging his burden at
the feet of the village bus driver, who stood with one foot on the
ledge around the bottom of the stove, while he slapped his wet mittens
against its glowing sides.
“Sim Coles never came in here,” answered a tall man with a black beard.
“He was talkin’ outside with a little gal.”
“Likely he’s hove it into a snowdrift,” grumbled the station-master,
turning back toward the door. “Should think he might uv——”
A little brown figure sprang out of the shadows.
“No, he didn’t,” she contradicted gleefully. “I’m the brown package,
you know, and the bow on my hat is the red label. He said it for a
joke.”
For a moment the group around the stove stared—then they joined in the
merry peal of laughter that was shaking the red label.
[Illustration: “Where’s the bundle Sim Coles left?” he demanded of the
group around the stove]
“So you’re the package, be ye?” inquired the station-master. “Waal,
where are you bound for, sissy? Come on up and let’s read that fancy
tag of yourn.”
The little girl bubbled appreciatively.
“I’ve come to visit my uncle,” she explained. “That is, he’s mother’s
uncle, Mr. Lemuel Perkins.”
“Is Lem expectin’ of you?” inquired the ’bus driver, leisurely picking
up a mail bag from the floor.
“Oh, no. Isn’t it fun? I’m a real Christmas surprise, you know, sent
early, so as not to overload the mail.”
She laughed again.
“Well, I guess you’d better ride along up with me, then. Lem lives just
a little piece beyond the post-office.”
“Oh, goody!” exclaimed the delighted passenger, with a breezy little
rush across the room to the other door. “This will be my second sleigh
ride, and I can drop right down on him out of a snowstorm, just the way
a Christmas surprise ought to. May I sit on the front seat with you,
Mr.—er——”
“Bennett,” supplied that gentleman genially. “Drove the Oatka Centre
’bus ever since there was a deepo to drive to. Say, who was your
mother, sissy? Did she ever live here?”
“Not exactly. Her name was Ellen Rumball, till she married father and
went to India to live. She used to visit Uncle Lemuel and Aunt Nancy,
before Aunt Nancy died.”
“Why, pshaw now! She ain’t the Ellen Rumball that married a missionary
named Christian, is she?”
“Christie,” corrected the small person. “We’re all missionaries, and
live in India. Father and mother and me and the children. Only I’m in
boarding school now—Crescent Hill, you know—the _loveliest_ school! But
scarlet fever broke out, so school closed two weeks early, and the girl
I was going to visit has the fever, so I decided to come right down and
spend Christmas with Uncle Lemuel. Won’t he be surprised?”
The driver peered out through the soft darkness.
“He will that,” he drawled. “Lem ain’t so gol darned used to children
as some.”
The little girl’s laugh tinkled gleefully.
“Oh, I’m not a child,” she explained. “I guess you didn’t see me very
well; the station was so dark. Why, I’m thirteen and a half years old,
and I’ve been grown up for a long time. I had to be, you see, to take
care of the children. Mother had her hands so full with the people and
the schools and father’s meetings and all that. Being a missionary is
the most absorbing work there is,” she ended impressively.
“Oh, I see,” chuckled Mr. Bennett. “Quite an old lady, and a missionary
to boot. That’s lucky, now. Lem’s been lookin’ for a housekeeper
for quite a spell, they say—ever since the Widder Em left him. A
missionary, now, will come in real handy. I’ll drive ye right over
first, and stop to the office on the way back. Can you see that light
down there? That’s Lem’s kitchen. Want I should come in with ye, sissy?”
The little girl pondered for a minute. “No, I believe not,” she
answered. “It would make you seem more like Santa Claus, I think, if
you just dropped me and rode away.”
Mr. Bennett chuckled.
“Mebbe it would, sissy, mebbe it would. I hain’t seen Sandy Claus in
so long that I’ve pretty nigh forgot how he does act. Whoa, there, you
reindeers! Hold on while I drop a Christmas passel down through Lem
Perkins’ chimley. Good-bye now, sissy. Good luck to ye. Giddap thar,
you reindeers! Giddap!”