CHAPTER II.

There were fire-places in every room on the ground-floor of Grandfather Vrooman's house, and some kind of a stove in more than half the rooms up stairs.

There were blazing fires on every hearth down stairs, and Liph got hold of Bijah after a while, and made him and Bush go around with him to help poke them up. Bijah had never seen a fire-place before, and it was a great wonder to him, but Bush sat down in front of each fire and barked at it.

It was getting dark when they reached the great front parlor, and the fire-place there was wonderful.

"Woof, woof, woof," barked Bush.

Bijah stood still in the door while Liph went near enough to give that fire a poke, and he could hear Grandfather Vrooman away back in the sitting-room:

"Now, my dear, we'll stick him away somewhere. Put him in one of the stockings, and hang him up."

"That's me," groaned Bijah. "He's going to make a present of me to somebody. Oh dear! I wish I could run away."

But he could not, for there was Liph and there was Bush, and it was getting dark.

"Now, my dear," went on grandfather, "I'll just light up, and then I'll go and meet that train. I'll bring Prue and her folks, and Pat'll meet the other, and bring Ellen and hers. Won't the old house be full this time!"

"He's caught some more somewhere," whispered Bijah to himself. "I wonder who'll get 'em? Who'll get me?"

That was an awful question, but Liph and Bush all but ran against him just then, and he heard grandmother say:

"You'll have to stick candles on the window-sills. I can't spare any lamps for up stairs."

"But, my dear, it's got to be lit up--every room of it. I want 'em to know Christmas is coming."

"That's what they were all saying at the 'sylum this morning," thought Bijah, "and here I am, right where it's coming to."

So he was, and he and Liph and Bush watched them finish setting the supper table, till suddenly Bush gave a great bark and sprang away toward the front door. Grandfather Vrooman had hardly been gone from the house an hour, but here he was, back again.

Jingle, jingle, jingle. How the sleigh-bells did dance as that great load of young folk came down the road, and what a racket they made at the gate, and how Bush, and Liph, and grandmother, and the rest did help them!

"He's caught 'em all," said Bijah; "but they ain't scared a bit."

No one would have thought so if they had seen Mrs. Prue Hopkins and her husband and her six children follow Grandfather Vrooman into the house.

They were hardly there, and some of them had their things on yet, when there came another great jingle, and ever so much talking and laughter down the other road.

"He's caught some more. Some are little and some are big. I wonder who'll get the baby?"

Bush was making himself hoarse, and had to be spoken to by Mr. Hardy, while Mrs. Simpson tried to unmix her children from the Hopkinses long enough to be sure none of them had dropped out of the sleigh on the road.

Then Liph set to work to introduce his cousins to Bijah, and Bush came and stood by his new friend in gray, to see that it was properly done.

"Where'd you come from?" asked Joe Simpson.

"'Sylum," said Bijah. "Where'd he catch you?"

"Catch what?" said Joe, but Liph managed to choke off the chuckle he was going into, and to shout out:

"Why, Joe, we found him in the road to-day. He thinks grandfather's old Santa Claus, and this house is Christmas."

"So I am--so it is," said Grandfather Vrooman.

"We'll make him hang up his stocking with all the rest to-night."

Bijah could not feel scared at all with so many children around him, and he was used to being among a crowd of them. Still, it was hard to feel at home after supper, and he might have had a blue time of it if it hadn't been for Liph and Bush. It had somehow got into Bush's mind that the dot in gray was under his protection, and he followed Bijah from one corner to another.

All the doors into the "dark room" were open, and it was the lightest room in the house, with its big fire on the hearth and all the lamps that were taken in after supper; but there was not one thing hanging on the Christmas tree until Grandfather Vrooman exclaimed:

"Now for stockings! It's getting late, children. I must have you all in bed before long."

"Stockings?"

They all knew what that meant, and so did Bijah, but it was wonderful how many that tree had to carry. Bob Hopkins insisted on hanging two pairs for himself, and Thad Simpson was begging his mother for a second pair, when Liph Hardy came in from the kitchen with a great, long, empty grain bag.

"What in the world is that for?" asked grandmother, perfectly astonished. "Why, child, what do you mean by bringing that thing in here?"

"One big stocking for grandfather. Let's hang it up, boys. Maybe Santa Claus'll come and fill it."

There was no end of fun over Grandfather Vrooman's grain-bag stocking, that was all leg and no foot, but Uncle Hiram Simpson took it and fastened it strongly to a branch in the middle of the tree. It was close to the trunk, and was almost hidden; but Liph saw Uncle Hiram wink at Aunt Ellen, and he knew there was fun of some kind that he had not thought of.

Grandmother Vrooman had been so busy with all those children from the moment they came into the house that she had almost lost her anxiety; but it came back to her now all of a sudden.

"Sakes alive! Jane," she said to Mrs. Hardy, "every last one of 'em's got to be in bed before we can do a thing with the stockings."

Bijah heard her, for he was just beyond the dining-room door, with a cruller in each hand, and it made him shiver all over.

"I wish I was in the 'sylum. No, I don't either; but I kind o' wish I was."

Bijah was a very small boy, and he had not seen much of the world, but his ideas were almost as clear as those of the other children and Grandmother Vrooman for the next fifteen minutes. The way the Simpson and Hopkins families got mixed up, with Liph and Sue Hardy to help them, was something wonderful. Old Bush wandered from room to room after them, wagging his tail and whining.

"Mother," exclaimed Mrs. Hardy at last, "the bed you made on the floor in the store-room!"

"Just the thing for him. All the rest go in pairs, I'll put that poor little dear right in there."

So she did, and not one of her own grandchildren was tucked in warmer than was Bijah. He did not kick the bedclothes off next minute, either, and he was the only child in the house of whom that could be said. Grandfather Vrooman paid a visit of inspection all around from room to room, and Bush went with him. It took him a good while. When he came to the store-room and looked in, Bijah's tired eyes were already closed as tight as were the fingers of the little hand on the coverlet, which was still grasping a cruller.

He was fast asleep, but Grandfather Vrooman was not; and yet, when Bush looked up at him, the old man's eyes were shut too, and there was a stir in his thick white beard as if his lips were moving.

Things got pretty still after a while, and then there began a steady procession in and out of the "dark room" which was not dark.

Boxes went in, and bundles, and these were opened and untied, and their contents spread out and looked at and distributed. It was no wonder Grandfather Vrooman's big sleigh had been so full, and the one Pat had driven, when they brought the Hopkins and Simpson families from the north and south railway stations.

Grandfather himself went away out to the barn once for something he said he had hidden there, and while he was gone Aunt Ellen Simpson and Uncle Hiram slipped a package into the grain bag, and grandmother handed Uncle Hiram another to slip in on top of it, and Uncle John Hardy and Uncle Martin Hopkins each handed him another, and the bag was almost half full, but you could not see it from outside; and then they all winked at each other when grandfather came in with a back-load of sleds. Grandmother may have thought she knew what they were winking about, but she didn't, for Uncle Hiram whispered to Aunt Ellen:

"I'm glad it's a big stocking. One'll do for both of 'em."

It was late when they all went to bed, and there was so much fire in the fire-place they were half afraid to leave it, but Grandfather Vrooman said it was of no use to try and cover it up, and the room would be warm in the morning.

When they got up stairs, the children must all have been asleep, for there was not a sound from any room, and the older people went to bed on tiptoe, and they had tried hard to not so much as whisper on the stairs.