_Zona Gale_
Little Anthony punched his small, hard pillow, to make it as large
as possible, so that his head would come well above the level of the
window sill. Wonderful, thick, Christmas-looking snow was falling,
though it wanted two days yet to Christmas.
“Mother!” he cried, “I wish all the snow in the world would come and
fall in front of our window!”
“It looks as if it had come,” said Mother Margaret.
That was what he usually called her--Mother Margaret: “Because that’s
your name!” he said. “Everybody calls you Margaret, in letters. Nobody
but me says ‘Mother.’”
“You want your head to be higher, don’t you?” she said now, and put
down the paper roses which, all day long, she made for a great factory.
She brought him her own pillow, and under that she folded a
bed-comforter. The poor little room had not a single cushion.
“Now!” she cried, “you can see all the snow there is.”
At any rate, Anthony could see nothing but snow--snow, and the dim
rectangle of the Window Across.
The Window Across was the back window of an apartment which faced the
avenue. Anthony’s window faced the court, and was over a store. There
were three floors of families over the store, because the rooms were
too old and inconvenient to use for offices. The Window Across had thin
rose silk curtains at the casement and often, in the evening, one could
look straight through to the front window and see bright moving figures
and an unbelievable dinner table, all made of bright things. And two
or three times, for ecstatic minutes, a little girl had come and stood
at the Window Across. Once, indeed, she had come right away out on the
fire-escape and stood there, dancing and laughing in the cold, until
a white-capped maid had run in a panic and carried her in. Anthony’s
window had been open then, and he had heard the maid cry: “Dear Child!”
So he always called her Dear Child.
He lay now looking through the snow to the Window Across, and imagining
that the snow lay so deep that they were at last obliged to make a
tunnel from one window to another, so that anybody could get out at
all. But it was always he and Mother Margaret who went down the tunnel
to the Window Across--never the others who came up, because the little
room was so bare and so shabby and so unlike the room he imagined
beyond the rose silk curtains. And always he was well and strong
instead of obliged to lie in bed, as he had lain now for almost a
year, to give strength to the poor back, wrenched and threatened by a
fall.
Suddenly, as he looked, a beautiful thing happened. The silk curtains
parted in the Window Across, the white-capped maid stood there, and
she hung in the window a great wreath of Christmas holly tied with a
scarlet bow.
Anthony sat up, and cried out and waved his thin little arms.
“Mother Margaret, Mother Margaret!” he cried. “Look--oh, look-at!”
Mother Margaret came and looked, and she exclaimed too, with something
of pleasure--but through the pleasure there went darting and stabbing
a pain which had been coming again and again these past few days; and
as Christmas Day drew nearer, it had been hurting her more and more.
It had come that morning when she had first waked. And she had said to
herself, for the hundredth time:
“What _is_ the use? You can buy him some fruit--a big orange and a red
apple. You can manage a little something for Christmas dinner. But you
can’t do anything else, and what _is_ the use in thinking about it?”
She put down her paper flowers now, and went over to Anthony’s bed.
“Tony, dear,” she said, “I _believe_ you’re thinking about Christmas.”
He looked up, bravely and brightly.
“No, Mother, truly,” he said, “I wasn’t thinking about it hardly at
all.”
She sat down on the bedside and took his hand. “You do know, don’t you,
love,” she said, “that Mother Margaret can’t--she sure-enough can’t--do
anything for our Christmas this year! But another year--”
“Yes, yes!” Tony agreed eagerly, “another year!”
“This year things are bad enough,” she said; “but if Mother thought
that--somewhere in his little heart, he wasn’t quite believing her, and
was thinking that maybe, _maybe_ some kind of Christmas would come to
him, why, then--”
Her voice stopped of its own will--stopped, and steadied itself
bravely, and went on again:
“Why, then,” she said, “Mother just couldn’t bear it _at all_.”
“Truly, Mother, truly!” said Anthony. “I know we can’t--I do know. Oh,
but--why, Mother Margaret! That’s what makes it so nice to see the
wreath! It’s just as if we almost had a wreath in our window--isn’t it,
though?”
“Almost, almost,” she said, and went back to her paper flowers. She had
six dozen red roses to make before Christmas Eve.
“And then the snow,” Anthony was saying eagerly. “Why, Mother, it’s
like all the Christmas pictures. It’s like the Christmas cards. And oh,
Mother,--think! It’s just as nice and white for us as if we lived no
matter where!”
“Yes,” said his mother bitterly, “the snow and the cold are about the
only things that are the same for us as for everybody.”
Anthony half closed his eyes and lay watching happily. Mother Margaret
went on with her roses. As she worked, her lips were moving. But she
was not counting the petals, as one would have supposed. She was
counting, as she almost always counted, what she had in her purse and
what she _must_ spend. And when one counts like this, all day long,
it begins to show in one’s face, in one’s voice, in all one’s ways.
Anthony was seven. It was six years since his father had died. And
every year of these six years she had been fighting to keep Anthony
with her. But this meant that she counted all day long.
At five o’clock Mother Margaret went out with half her roses. At the
factory she sent them in and asked, as she did each time, for more
tissue paper. The manager looked doubtful. Had she enough to finish
her order? Oh, yes, she said; but she carried a little back at each
delivery. The man returned. She would have to wait--everyone was busy
with the rush mail orders. They could give out no paper till Monday.
As she went out, she lingered and looked about her. She did not guess
what a pretty picture she made in her old brown coat and hat which just
matched her eyes. What about all these women, she was wondering. Some
of them must have little children at home. And they must have to count
almost as much as she counted. She wished that she knew how they meant
to manage about Christmas. Was there anything that she could do, if she
knew how to do it, for Anthony’s Christmas?
A middle-aged woman was packing boxes near her. Mother Margaret went
shyly to her.
“I wonder,” she said, “could you tell me anything you know how to do
for a child’s Christmas? Something that won’t--that doesn’t--”
The woman leaned on the box for a moment. She nodded comprehendingly.
“Why,” she said, “no. Everything costs now. Did you ever try using the
flowers?”
“The flowers?” Mother Margaret questioned.
“They decorate grand,” said the woman. “You can get a lot made up
ahead, and string them around the room. You can make a tree look lovely
with ’em, and nothing else. And it don’t hurt ’em none. Take ’em down,
and they’re like new.”
Why had she never thought of that! She thanked the woman joyfully.
Mother Margaret flew along the street for the mile which she walked to
save car fare, her head filled with visions. The pink and white and
green tissue paper was there in their room; it was not hers, and it had
not occurred to her that she could use it. But, just for one evening
to borrow the flowers before she sent them out--oh, nobody could
mind that. She could make the room beautiful, she could make a tree
beautiful! But she knew she could not afford a tree.
There was one thing, however, which Mother Margaret could do. She had
brought her library card in expectation of it. She went into the
little branch library near where she lived, and eagerly to the desk.
In these days before the holidays there was almost no one in the room.
The pleasant-faced young woman at the desk had time to greet her with
unusual cordiality.
“Oh,” said Mother Margaret, her cheeks flushed from her long walk, “I
want you to find me a book. A book that a little child will like. A
book all pictures. A Christmas book, if you can.”
“That ought to be easy,” the pleasant-faced young woman said, and went
with her to the shelves, asking questions.
At the first book which she found and offered, Mother Margaret shook
her head.
“No,” she said, “it’s got to be--to be larger than that. Thicker, I
mean--it’s got to last longer. You see,” she explained, flushing still
more, “I want it to last my little boy all day long, on Christmas. It’s
about the only Christmas he’s going to have.”
“I see,” said the woman quietly.
“And then,” Mother Margaret said, “if you had something about modeling.
About modeling in clay--”
“Does your little boy model in clay?” the librarian asked.
Mother Margaret flushed again. “He never has had any clay or any
tools,” she said; “but he loves to read about it.”
They found two books, one on clay modeling, and one with many pictures,
and a story of somebody’s wonderful Christmas that came when none was
expected. Then the librarian considered for a moment, looking at a
colored sheet of birds on the bulletin-board; she took down the poster,
rolled and tied it and, from the bowl on her desk, fastened a sprig of
holly in the cord.
“Flowers and birds and a piece of holly!” Mother Margaret cried, and
thanked her joyfully.
She bought her red apple and a great orange, looked longingly at a
window of chocolates, and ran home with her treasures.
As she was leaving the things in the sitting-room, on her own bed, she
heard Anthony calling her.
“Mother--oh, Mother! Come here!” he shouted excitedly. When she ran to
him he was sitting up--his face as near to the window as he could get.
“Look at! _Look_ at!” he said. “They’ve brought home their Christmas
tree! They’ve hid it on the fire-escape!”
And there, leaning against the wall of the fire-escape, outside the
Window Across, was a beautiful, tapering evergreen tree, sent home for
Christmas and hidden outside there, unquestionably to surprise the Dear
Child.
Anthony and his mother sat on the bed and looked at this tree. And
presently they began to plan. On the very tip-top would be the star--or
would it be the angel? They decided on the star. Below would come the
ornaments, the candles, the nuts wrapped in silver paper, the pink
hanging bags of candy, the pop-corn strings. All this Mother Margaret
arranged, because she had seen many Christmas trees, and Anthony never
had seen any. But there was one thing that he could plan.
“And then,” he said, “right close under the tree, would be the box all
full of clay and things to model with!”
“Yes,” Mother Margaret agreed, with a catch in her voice. “That should
be there, without a doubt.” Then she whispered to him.
“Tony, dear,” she said. “I’ve no Christmas for you. But I have got a
little surprise.”
Her heart ached at the leaping delight in his eyes as he looked up at
her.
“Not a gift, dear,” she hastened to say. “Just a little something for
us to look at--oh, Tony, it isn’t much at all!” she broke off.
“Why, Mother,” Tony said, “a little much is _almost_ as nice as a great
big much, you know!”
The gayety with which she had come in was slipping away, now that
she had seen the tree for the Dear Child. Presently she went in the
other room and opened the box where she kept the tissue paper. But
the flowers would be something, after all, in the dull little room on
Christmas Day. She lifted out the sheets, and stood staring at them.
There were not more than three dozen sheets, and she had three dozen of
the roses yet to make. One rose required a sheet of paper. These must
be delivered by Christmas Eve--to-morrow night! No more paper would be
given out till Monday. She could not even have the flowers for Anthony
on Christmas day....
_If only Christmas were to-morrow!_
She went back into Anthony’s room and sat down beside his bed. She
dreaded to tell him that even the poor “little much” of a surprise was
not to be his. She put it off until they should have had their supper.
After supper, in the dark, they could just see the tall shadow of the
Christmas tree leaning against the opposite wall in the snow. Presently
the Window Across flamed bright with the lighted globes within the room.
The tall Christmas tree there against the wall! Mother Margaret sat and
stared at it. It seemed such a waste that it should be there all this
time, with no one enjoying it. It seemed such a waste that it should
stand there to-morrow, with no one enjoying it. It would be just as
beautiful, decorated now, as it would be on Christmas Day....
And then Mother Margaret’s heart stood still at what it thought. But it
thought about it once, it thought about it twice, and then it began to
beat as Mother Margaret’s heart did not often beat any more. She sprang
up and stood looking out the window, across the court to the tree.
Could she possibly bring herself to do it? Would she dare? What would
they think--what would they do--Oh, but she must try!
“Tony,” she said, “Mother must go out again now, for a few minutes.”
She slipped down to the street, and around the corner to the avenue.
There was no difficulty in distinguishing the apartment building. She
walked boldly in the door and to the elevator.
“Fourth,” she said with confidence.
The white-capped maid opened the door. She looked at Mother Margaret
as a stranger, and Mother Margaret wanted to say: “Oh, but I know you
very well!” Only, when she had seen her before, in the Window Across,
she had looked quite small and like anybody; whereas she seemed now a
person towering infinitely tall.
“I want,” said little Mother Margaret, quite loud and bold, “to see
your mistress. At once.”
The maid looked at her perplexedly. Small and pretty persons in shabby
brown with nice voices and the ways of a lady did not often come
knocking at this door demanding to see the mistress, and not by name.
“I don’t think--” the maid began doubtfully.
“Tell her that I shall not keep her,” said Mother Margaret clearly.
“But I must see her. Tell her that I do not know her, but that I am her
neighbor, across the court.
Then the maid gave way. There is something about that word “neighbor”
that is a talisman. With, “I’ll see,” the maid ushered her in. She
stood weakly in the small and pretty reception-room while the maid went
to call her mistress. Then there came a step, and a voice.
Mother Margaret hardly looked at this woman. She saw someone in gray,
with a practical face of concern; then she saw nothing but direct and
rather pleasant eyes looking into hers.
“Madam,” said Mother Margaret, simply, “you have out on your
fire-escape a little Christmas tree. Christmas isn’t till day after
to-morrow. To-morrow, for a little while, could you lend me that tree?”
“Lend you--” repeated the woman, uncertainly.
“I live just back of you,” Mother Margaret went on breathlessly. “I
saw the tree. I thought--if you could lend it to me a little while
to-morrow--oh, just as it is! and just till you get ready to trim it. I
could bring it back quite promptly. Nothing should happen to it. And I
could fix it up--just for a little while. My--my little boy never has
seen a tree trimmed,” she added.
“My dear!” said the woman.
This, Mother Margaret thought, would be the exclamation at the
impossibility of doing anything so wild. She looked miserably down at
the floor. And so she did not see someone else come into the room,
until a soft quick step was close beside her.
“Why,” this newcomer said, “Mother! This is a friend of mine!”
Then Mother Margaret looked up, straight into the eyes of the
pleasant-faced woman of the library.
“Oh!” cried Mother Margaret. “Oh!” And for a moment said no more. “I
never knew I was going to ask this of you--when you’ve done so much!”
she cried at last.
She turned to the older woman in mute apology. And she was actually
filled with wonder when she saw that the eyes of the older woman were
shining with tears.
They went into the little living-room and talked it over, how it could
be managed. The two women saw--because they looked with the heart--that
there must be no thought of the gift of another tree. It must be just
as Mother Margaret had suggested. The tree must be lent for a part of
to-morrow and returned in time for them to trim it on Christmas Eve.
“For the Dear Child,” said Mother Margaret; and then blushed
beautifully. “Tony and I call her that,” she said.
“With that, they called the Dear Child to the room. The white-capped
maid was putting her to bed, and brought her in, partly undressed, with
surprisingly fat legs and arms and surprisingly thick curls.
“Honey,” the older woman said, “a little boy lives across the court.
This is his mama.”
The Dear Child opened wide eyes.
“I know that little bit o’ boy,” she announced. “He--he--he--lives in
the bed!”
“Yes,” Mother Margaret said sorrowfully, “he lives in the bed.”
“Say him a kiss,” the Dear Child said sleepily, and was carried back to
her undressing.
So then it was arranged that when the maid was free, she should come
bringing the Christmas tree round to the door of Mother Margaret’s flat.
“I could carry it,” Mother Margaret insisted.
But no, it must be, it seemed, exactly as they said. Mother Margaret
must be there to have left the outer door ajar, and to amuse the
little boy and keep his attention while the tree was put into the other
room. She must pin a handkerchief on the open door so that there should
be no mistake. And then on no account must she leave the little boy
when she heard the tree set in the other room, or else he would hear,
and wonder. Would she do all this, exactly as they told her to?
There was no thanking them. Perhaps Mother Margaret’s broken words,
though, were better thanks than any perfect utterance.
She ran home, through a maze of lights and windows which danced and
nodded and all but held out their hands. It is strange and sorrowful,
at Christmas time, how much more, if you are going to have Christmas
joy, the lights and windows seem to mean Christmas than if you are
going to have none.
When she went in she saw that Tony had fallen asleep. His little pillow
was still bunched, hard and round, on her own and on the folded quilt.
And his face was still turned toward the Window Across.
She sat down to wait. She would not wake him. Until after the maid
had been there with the tree, she would not even risk lighting the
gas and working at the flowers. She sat almost an hour in the dusk.
The outer door of the other room was standing faithfully ajar, with a
handkerchief pinned to a panel, and the light there burning low. She
could have been sure that she would hear the lightest step in the next
room; and then, since Anthony was asleep, she meant to disregard their
injunctions and slip to the door for a word of gratitude for the maid.
But when she fancied that she heard a sound, and caught a shadow, and
when she had hurried to the door, she stood mute and hardly breathing
in her wonderment. No one was there--save indeed a presence. And the
presence was the tree, standing neatly erect in its small, green
box--and hung from top to base with popcorn and tinsel and ornaments
which, even in that dim light, glittered like angels and like stars.
Mother Margaret went in and sat down on her little bed, and looked at
the wonder of it. And before she knew that it might possibly happen to
her she had hidden her face in her hands and was sobbing.
A stir from Anthony sent her back to his room. He was moving in the
little bed “where he lived,” and Mother Margaret wiped her eyes and
lighted the gas, and wondered how she could keep the happy news.
She went to him to arrange his pillow. He opened his eyes and
smiled--as all his life long he had never failed to smile when first he
opened his eyes and saw her. Then, at some memory, the eyes flew wide.
“Is to-morrow Christmas, Mama?”
Without just the combination of events which had set her head whirling,
Mother Margaret would never have answered as she did.
“Yes, darling. To-morrow is Christmas.”
His face lighted, “_Is_ it?” he cried. “Is it tomorrow?”
“Yes,” she said again, “to-morrow.”
“Will the s’prise be when I wake up?”
“Yes,” she said, “the surprise will be when you wake up.”
He smiled again, and drifted off to sleep. As she smoothed the tumbled
covers, the old grip and terror came to her at sight of the little
wasted body. The momentary qualm which she had felt died away. Why
should he not believe that it was Christmas Day? She knew the heart of
a child, knew that the day makes all the difference. Tony should think
that he had one Christmas, in any case!
It was past one o’clock when she finished the last of the roses. Tony
was sleeping heavily. She turned down the gas and went to work.
The bed, left from the days of her housekeeping, had a high, slender
white frame, meant to hold a canopy. From this down to the foot posts
ran two cords carrying roses, and roses ran along the foot rail.
Working slowly and quietly, she brought the tree from the other
room to stand by his side. She had not yet had time to examine the
ornaments--she and Tony could do that together. His stocking, the poor
little disused stocking, with the big red apple and the orange, she
tied to a bough reaching toward the little boy, like a friendly hand.
The library books were spread open at pages of bright pictures. The
chart of colored birds was pinned to the wall. The sprig of holly was
fastened to the coverlet. At the last moment, from scraps of her green
tissue, she had fashioned a semblance of holly wreath, with a bit of
red paper twisted here and there for berries. She slipped behind the
bed, and hung the wreath in the window. When, in the “little hours,”
she crept to her own bed, she was without fatigue.
She woke at dawn, and was dressed and back in his room before he had
opened his eyes. She lighted the gas, and then she kissed him.
“Merry Christmas, Tony!” she cried.
He struggled up, lovely with sleep. And in upon his dreams came the
lines of the roses, and the soft greenness and beauty and brightness
of the tree. He sat up, his head thrown back, an expression of almost
angelic wonder in his believing face. And he was, with all his joy, a
practical little Tony.
“W-w-where’d you get that?” he cried. “Oh, Mama! Mama! Mama!”
And there was something in his cry that opened Mother Margaret’s heart
like a flower.
A child before its _first_ Christmas tree, that is an experience apart.
Tony was mute. Tony was shouting. Tony was leaning forward to touch
things. Tony was leaning far back to win the effect of the whole. Tony
was absolutely and unutterably happy.
So was Mother Margaret--for a while. Then Tony said an unexpected thing.
“Think,” he said, “that little Jesus was born to-day. Really, truly
to-day.”
Mother Margaret looked at him.
“They cannot tell surely, which day, you know, son,” she said
uncertainly.
“Oh, it was to-day!” Tony told her positively. “I know it was to-day.”
Then, when he took in his hands the library picture book, there was
the story of Bethlehem of Judea, and she must read it to him, and he
listened as if he were hearing it for the first time.
“It was this morning!” he said over dreamily. “The Star in the East was
this morning, Mother Margaret. It seems true, now I’ve seen my tree,”
he added quaintly.
He seemed possessed with the idea of “to-dayness.”
“Think,” he said again, “all little boys is got a tree now. Right now.
And me, too!”
It was a long, enchanted day; and she waited until the final possible
moment to close it.
“Tonykins,” she said at last, “now the roses have to come down while
Mama puts them into a box and takes them to their own family. And while
she’s gone, you can lie here and look at the tree, can’t you?”
“Yes,” said Anthony, “an’--an’ it’ll talk to me!”
Unquestionably the tree talked to Tony. But the amazing thing was that
it also talked to his mother, on her way down to the factory.
No sooner was she on the street from the happy holiday humor of
their room than she was faced accusingly by the bustle and clamor of
the streets on “the night before Christmas.” Everyone was intent on
something outside himself. Everyone, Mother Margaret thought, would
have known it was Christmas, if he had not been told.
_All save Tony._ Her heart smote her when she thought of that. For Tony
in the little bed where he “lived,” all the blessedness and peace of
tomorrow had descended to-day, and he had lived them faithfully. And on
Christmas morning, on Star of Bethlehem morning for all the rest of the
world, it would all be past for him; when for all the rest of the world
it would be dawning....
Christmas dinner they ate together on Christmas Eve, there at Tony’s
bedside, with a royal feast of one thing extra, spread on a little
sewing table set in the shadow of the tree.
“Now, dear,” said Mother Margaret when they had finished, “the
twenty-four hours is almost up, and the fairy is going to come for the
tree. You’re sure you won’t mind--aren’t you?”
“Oh, yes, Mother!” Tony’s eyes were fastened on the tree as if he
feared it might vanish if he looked away.
“And you are going to feel more glad that you had it than sorry to see
it go?”
“Oh, yes, Mother!”
Tony’s eyes were still on the tree.
“I wish,” he said, “I wish Christmas was to-morrow, too. I like to feel
like I feel when it’s Christmas.”
She sat beside him, silent, when outside the door came the tread and
tap which they were both expecting. And somewhat to her bewilderment
Mother Margaret admitted four visitors. There was the kindly,
practical woman; and the librarian with the pleasant eyes; and the maid
with the Dear Child in her arms.
She set the Dear Child down, and the Dear Child ran to Tony’s bed, and
in her hands was a box.
“Little boy!” she shouted. “See what! See what!”
She laid something beside him. And when, trembling a little with the
wonder of it, Tony had unwound this, there lay his longed-for clay and
some unbelievable modeling tools. Mother Margaret’s eyes flew to the
librarian. And the look of the two women met and clung, with something
living in the faces of them both. And so it came about that when the
maid drew the little tree from the room, Tony hardly knew.
They went away with happy greetings, and waving hands, and promises to
meet again.
“I--I--I--bring you my kitty and my fimbel!” shouted the Dear Child
kissing her hand. “That other day,” she added importantly.
An hour later Tony opened his eyes sleepily.
“Make a great big racket, Mother Margaret!” he surprisingly demanded.
“Why, dear?” she asked.
“’Cause if I go to sleep, then it won’t be Christmas any more,” said
Tony, and drifted off with his smile still on his face.
Christmas morning, the true Christmas morning, came with a white mantle
and a bright face. Mother Margaret woke to hear the city one tumbling
peal of early bells. She sprang up and threw on her dressing gown,
with her pretty hair falling about her shoulders, and ran to Tony’s
room. He was still asleep. Resolutely, and even joyously, she stooped
and kissed him.
“Tony, dear!” she said--but there was something like a sob in her
voice. “Wake up! It’s Christmas morning!”
His eyes flew open, and stared straight into her eyes.
“It’s Christmas morning,” she repeated tremulously.
A look of pain came to his face.
“Did I dream my tree?” he asked.
“No!” she cried, “no, dear. You did have your tree. Mother told you
yesterday was Christmas because we could just have the tree that
day--and she wanted you to have all the fun--_all_ of it, Tony--” She
broke down, and buried her face in his warm neck.
Something of the solemnity and old wisdom born in a child when a grown
person apologizes, or explains, or in any wise treats him as an equal,
came growing in Tony’s face. But this was over-shadowed now, by a
dawning joy.
“Mother!” he cried. “Truly? Truly, is it Christmas _again_?”
“Not again,” she said. “But it’s Christmas.”
He sat up, and threw his arms about her.
“Oh, I’m glad--I’m glad!” he cried. “Why, Mother. Then _it wasn’t just
the tree that made us happy, was it_?”
She held him close. And as they sat in each other’s arms, in the bare
room, with no tree, no roses, and even the clay for a moment forgotten,
there came overwhelmingly to the woman, and dimly to the child, the
precious understanding that Christmas is a spirit. And the spirit was
with them, and made a third presence in their sudden, indefinable
joyousness.
Tony drew a little away, and laughed up at her.
“Mother Margaret!” he cried. “It’s Christmas--it’s Christmas!”
“Yes,” she said, “yes, dear. Don’t you hear the bells?”
Tony shook his head. “We don’t need the bells, Mother,” he said. “Why,
Mother Margaret!” he cried, “maybe now we can get the feeling every
day!”
[24] Copyright by Crowell Publishing Company, 1915. Reprinted by
special permission of the author.