Part 8

Mrs. Raymond and Peggy were too accustomed to Sally’s doleful prophecies to be cast down. They heaved sighs of relief, exchanged smiles, and Peggy flew to her room to get her apron. At the head of the stairs she encountered Ruth, a red-eyed, drooping figure, and Peggy’s conscience reproached her that in her own alarm and relief, she had momentarily forgotten her friend’s greater cause for anxiety.

"You see," she whispered, pausing for a moment, "Sometimes things turn out better than you think they will. I was almost sure that Dorothy was dreadfully hurt, you know." But Ruth only shook her head and made the answer characteristic of people in trouble, who are all likely to think their own especial load unlike any other burden.

"But this is different."

*CHAPTER XI*

*CHRISTMAS PREPARATIONS*

Peggy’s door was locked again, but this time it was not Ruth’s fault. Peggy would have said, if questioned, that she had "troubles of her own," and the chances are that it would not have occurred to her that there was anything incongruous in the selection of such a phrase to describe her Christmas preparations.

The little bed-room, usually a model of exquisite neatness, in spite of its simplicity, now suggested a compromise between a church fair and a rummage sale. Articles in various stages of completion were draped over the furniture, or hung on door-knobs. The bed was piled so deep that often when bed-time approached, Peggy was tempted to take to her easy-chair for the night, for what of the night was left, that is to say, for Peggy was infringing sadly on those hours warranted to make one healthy and wealthy and wise, if properly observed. Mrs. Raymond was uneasy when she saw the gleam of light through the transom long after midnight, but Peggy met all remonstrances with the plead, "O, please don’t say anything, mother, till Christmas is over. You know I’ve got to finish."

When Dorothy rattled the door-knob this particular afternoon, Peggy’s start was suggestive of over-strained nerves. Her voice was unnaturally sharp as she demanded, "who’s there?"

"Me."

"You know you can’t come in, Dorothy. Run away and play."

The knob rattled again. It was not an aggressively loud sound, but Peggy was just tired enough to find it unendurable. Her lips tightened.

"Dorothy, will you stop that noise? This minute!"

Surprise kept Dorothy motionless for almost thirty seconds. "What you doing?" she asked, after that amazing pause, her rosy lips close to the key-hole, her voice persuasive.

"I’m making something you can’t see. Please don’t bother." Peggy jerked her thread savagely. She was, as a matter of fact, hemstitching the little petticoat of the doll she was dressing for Dorothy. She had laughed when her mother suggested that it was hardly worth while to take so much pains. "A strip of embroidery gathered and put in a band would please the child just as well. She isn’t old enough to appreciate the work you are putting into these dainty little garments."

"Work! I don’t call it work. It’s just fun," said Peggy blithely. "And it’s such a tiny way round a doll’s petticoat, mother, that it won’t take any time to speak of." There would have been time enough if there had not been so many things of the same kind; trifles demanding little time when taken separately, but together filling to overflowing Peggy’s hours of leisure, and infringing on the time she needed for recreation and sleep. She thought of them with a sense of nervous apprehension which was far removed from anything festive. There were two of the sweet peas on her mother’s centrepiece not finished yet, and those sweet peas took so long.

"I must finish Aunt Rachel’s bureau scarf to-night," Peggy thought. "I’ve got to allow for the mails being slow. Perhaps I’d better leave this till that is done, for I can finish the doll the very last thing." She tucked the petticoat out of sight, and produced the bureau scarf from under a rainbow litter of Dresden ribbon, scraps of silk, and odds and ends of lace, all of which Peggy designed for especial use.

"Next year," thought Peggy, frantically attacking the bureau scarf, "I’m going to begin my Christmas presents New Year’s afternoon. Perhaps if I start the first of January and keep right at it through the year--Why, what’s that?"

There was a sound in the hall, a choked, low, pitiful sound that seemed startlingly out of place with Christmas near. The bureau scarf dropped to the floor. The spool of thread and the thimble made a bee-line to hide themselves under the dresser, as if they both had enough of getting ready for Christmas. Peggy herself lost no time in turning the key and bolting into the hall, where Dorothy a pensive little heap, her face hidden on her knees, was weeping.

Dorothy had a variety of ways of crying. When angry her tears were accompanied by shrill squeals, as pathetic as a fife playing Yankee Doodle. If she hurt herself she was more likely to relieve her feelings by noise than by tears, suggesting those summer showers whose thunder peals and lightning flashes prepare us for a deluge, but which content themselves, after all, with a few scattering drops. These emotional outbreaks on Dorothy’s part Peggy took philosophically. But when she cried softly, hiding the face down which the big tears were coursing, while the sobs shook her little body, then indeed, it was another matter.

"Dorothy!" Peggy cried, dropping down on her knees beside the despondent figure. "Dorothy, what is the matter? What are you crying about?"

"Aunt Peggy." It was a full minute before Dorothy could answer, and then the quiver running through the words pierced Peggy’s heart. "Ain’t Christmas going to be over pretty quick?"

"It comes next week, honey."

"Well, I’ll be glad when it’s gone." A great sob emphasized the statement. "It’s such a horrid time."

"Dorothy!" Peggy was aghast: "You can’t mean that you don’t like Christmas."

"It’s a horrid time," Dorothy repeated, with every indication of sincerity. "Folks lock doors. And then they tell you to go and play, and there ain’t anyfing to play. And there’s nice fings, but you can’t see ’em." She sobbed again as she painted the black picture, and Peggy hastened to explain, "But, darling, you will see them on Christmas day. Think what a good time you will have when you find out all the secrets."

"But I want a good time now," said Dorothy explosively.

For once Peggy had no reply ready. What was there to be said? Of course Dorothy did. Who could reasonably expect this little human thistle-down to fold her hands and wait patiently through weeks of Christmas preparations in which she had no share. Peggy, absorbed in her plans, had found no time for the stories Dorothy loved, for the little after-supper frolics, for candy pulls in the kitchen, for walks over the snow. All these joys had been discontinued with a vague promise of something very nice to happen by and by. What wonder Dorothy was dissatisfied?

"And getting ready for Christmas is almost the nicest part," Peggy thought. "And here I’ve locked my door and shut her out of it. It’s no wonder she thinks Christmas is horrid." She lowered her voice mysteriously. "Dorothy, how would you like to help me make a Jack Horner pie?"

The hands which covered Dorothy’s eyes dropped to her knees. The little face revealed was more suggestive of April than of December, with the wet eyes shining, and the dimples swallowing up stray tear drops. "A Jack Horner pie?" repeated Dorothy in a thrilled whisper.

"Yes."

"Will we put in a fum and pull out a plum?"

"They’ll be funny plums. Come and I’ll show you. But we’ll lock the door, because this is our secret and nobody must know."

Under the bed was a shiny tin milk pan, and rolls of tissue paper, green and red. "Now I’m going to cover this pan with green paper," Peggy explained. "And there’ll be a pasteboard cover, with a big round hole in the middle, and there’s where we will put in our thumbs."

"And cry what a big boy’m I," added Dorothy, hopping on one foot, which with her was an indication of fascinated interest.

"The cover’ll be all fixed with red tissue paper, and, instead of plums, there’ll be little presents inside."

"Is it going on the Christmas tree, Aunt Peggy?" Dorothy squatted beside her aunt, carried away by the enchantment of the plan. And as Peggy looked at the beaming little face the isolation of her previous preparations suddenly seemed selfish.

"No, this isn’t for the tree. It’s going on the table for the Christmas dinner. The presents aren’t nice ones, you know. They’re funny little jokes. Here’s Dick’s present, a queer little make-believe alarm-clock, because he is so slow about getting up in the morning.

"Dick’s a lazy boy to be my uncle," said Dorothy, giggling rapturously. "I guess he’ll be ’shamed when he pulls out his plum."

"There’s a rhyme to go with it, Dorothy. That’s part of the fun. Do you want to hear it?"

Dorothy promptly became a statuette of attention, her hands folded, and her grave face flatteringly expectant, while Peggy read aloud.

"Dick, Dick, the sleepy-head, Dearly loves his little bed. Here’s a cure; ’twill work for sure, Wind it tight. Set it right, And then go ahead and Blow out the light. When morning comes, how the folks will stare, To go to breakfast and find Dick there."

"That’s poetry," said Dorothy much impressed. "I learned poetry once, all about Tit, Tiny and Tittens. Did you write a poetry plum for me, too, Aunt Peggy?"

"Yes, but I mustn’t read you yours. That’s a surprise, but you can hear grandpa’s. You see, I’m going to give him a pen because he hates to have anybody else use his pens, and Dick’s always doing it." Peggy cleared her throat. "This is grandpa’s poem.

"Now, here’s a pen for the best of men, And I wish it were purest gold. It could not write, in a whole long night, Half the love my heart does hold. Not for Dick’s abuse, but for father’s use, Is the pen I here present. May it long keep bright and continue to write, As well as the maker meant."

"I’m going to write some poetry, too, for my Christmas presents," said Dorothy, fired to emulation. "I’m going to say,

"This is for Aunt Peggy Because she’s eggy."

"But I wouldn’t be _eggy_, I hope," exclaimed Peggy, laughing with an abandon rare in the last ten days. "So your poetry wouldn’t fit."

Dorothy’s face fell. "Oh!" she exclaimed, with perhaps a glimmering appreciation of the truth that art is long. "Oh! I didn’t know that poetry had to be true." She gave up her ambition for the time being. "What’s grandma’s poetry, Aunt Peggy?"

Peggy unfolded the slip of paper willingly. She was proud of that attempt.

"We could have a jolly Christmas though old Santa Claus should go. We could do without a turkey at a pinch. And to spare the cheerful holly and the festive mistletoe Would be rather in the nature of a cinch. There is only one thing needed, as you’ll readily agree, One essential that surpasses every other, For of all absurd endeavors, the most imbecile would be, Just to try to have Christmas without mother."

"I’m going to have a Christmas ’thout my mover," Dorothy remarked unexpectedly, and Peggy read on rapidly to avoid arguing the point.

"Though the chimney corner stockings should be limp on Christmas day, Though the postman on his rounds should fail to ring. Though of all our friends and neighbors there was not a one to say, ’Merry Christmas,’ or some other proper thing. Still I think we could be happy, meet the day with faces bright, Drawing just a little closer to each other. But there isn’t one among us who could keep his spirits light, If we had to spend a Christmas without mother.

Dorothy had heard poetry enough by now. She moved about the room, keeping her plump hands tightly folded, in her effort to comply with Peggy’s caution not to touch. And Peggy, working busily at the construction of the Jack Horner pie, found Dorothy’s presence no drawback to her progress. As a matter of fact there is such a thing as hurrying till one is unable to accomplish anything. The distraction of Peggy’s thoughts by the artless questions and the refreshingly original observations of her small niece was helpful rather than hindering. Her tense nerves relaxed. She laughed out half a dozen times, as if Christmas preparations were a joyful matter instead of soul-straining, nerve-racking ordeal, through which one must pass in order to be worthy of the pleasures beyond.

The Jack Horner pie was finished and tucked out of sight when someone ran up the stairs. "Peggy!" said a breathless voice, outside the door. "Peggy!"

"O Ruth!" Peggy sprang up with hospitable intent, but Dorothy frowned. "We’re pretty busy," she said warningly, and in tones distinctly audible in the hall.

Peggy threw the door ajar, disclosing her friend’s flushed face and heaving chest. "You should put on a coat, instead of running to keep warm," scolded Peggy.

"I’m warm enough." Ruth made an impatient gesture. "Peggy, there’s another."

"What, you don’t mean--"

"Sh!" Ruth drew Peggy out into the hall. "Yes," she replied, nodding mysteriously. "It’s another letter from Maud."

Peggy regarded the square envelope her friend held toward her, and frowned as she drew back. "I don’t want it. I shouldn’t have read the other if I’d understood."

"Peggy, it’s the strangest thing I ever heard of. It’s just like the first."

"Just like the first? I suppose you mean--"

"I mean it’s word for word like the other one. Do you suppose she could have forgotten that she had written him and thanked him over again?"

"If that’s the case she must be a very stupid person," Peggy pronounced judicially. Then curiosity prompted her to ask, "Did Graham leave that lying around too?"

Ruth flushed hotly. "No-o! I took the mail from the postman, and I recognized the monogram. The writing didn’t look natural. She must have used a different pen."

Peggy refused to be diverted by the peculiarities of Maud’s penmanship. "Ruth Wylie!" she demanded indignantly. "Do you mean to tell me that you opened your brother’s letter?"

Ruth squirmed. "Peggy, I just had to know what she said."

"If you wanted to know what she said you should have gone to Graham and asked him. I don’t think anything very good ever comes from doing things in an underhanded way."

"Don’t be cross, Peggy," pleaded Ruth. "I never was so puzzled and troubled in all my life. And I want you to advise me."

"I am advising you. Go to Graham about it. Or else tell your father. That’s the only advice I can give you, and the best you’re likely to get from anybody."

"I can’t do that," Ruth returned despairingly. Resentfully she studied the address on the letter she held. "Christmas is just spoiled for me, Peggy. I can’t think of anything but Maud, and the way Graham is wasting his money, and how deceitful he is, and how poor father would feel if he knew." She swallowed down a sob, and almost remorsefully, Peggy threw her arms about her and hugged her.

"You poor dear thing. I only wish I could help you. But, honestly, Ruth, there is only one way out, and that’s to be frank and above board. Even if Graham has done wrong, silly things, it’s no sign that he can’t be brought to reason. I’d talk to him in a minute, if he were my brother."

Unwelcome advice seldom seems good advice to the recipient. Ruth went away dejected, with the purloined letter in her pocket, but Peggy’s remonstrances had at least one good effect. Ruth resolved that in the future she would read no more of her brother’s letters without his permission. Peggy, standing in the hall, her forehead knotted over her friend’s problem, felt a little twinge of shame as she recalled her varying moods of dejection and irritation during the past week. The finishing of a specified number of gifts at a specified time seemed a trifling cause for disquiet, compared with the burden poor Ruth was carrying.

"Aunt Peggy!" A timid voice spoke from the doorway. "See what I’ve found."

Peggy whirled about. Dorothy stood on the threshold, the doll’s petticoat slipped over her arm. She was studying it speculatively.

"It looks some like a sleeve, Aunt Peggy. A sleeve to a little girl’s dress."

Peggy stifled the irritable exclamation which rose to her lips with such unwonted readiness, pulled the petticoat from Dorothy’s arm and set it upon her curls. "It looks to me now like a cap," she said cheerily. "A real little dunce cap. Look in the glass and see."

Dorothy gazed at her reflection in the mirror, and agreed rapturously. "It looks ’zactly like a dunce cap, Aunt Peggy, and then I’d be the little dunce, wouldn’t I? Or might it be--" she made the suggestion diffidently. "It _might_ be a little teenty petticoat, but I guess it isn’t ’cause then there’d have to be a dolly to go with it. And, anyway, I’m not going to pry, ’cause Christmas is coming."

Peggy laughed. After all it was better to have Dorothy suspect, than to have her weeping as if her heart were broken and wanting Christmas over. She sat down to her bureau scarf with less of the air of a sweat-shop worker, than had characterized her earlier in the day, and as her needle flew, and she abstractedly answered Dorothy’s comments, her thoughts hovered about Ruth, poor Ruth, whose Christmas was spoiled through no fault of her own, whose _joy was poisoned by the bitterest of all disillusions, disappointment in one she had loved and trusted_.

*CHAPTER XII*

*DOROTHY GOES SHOPPING*

"Dorothy, if you don’t keep still, how am I ever going to get your legging on?"

Peggy’s protest paralyzed Dorothy’s dancing feet for exactly fifteen seconds by the clock. It was an occasion for dancing and handclapping and little gurgles of laughter. Dorothy was going down town to do her Christmas shopping, and the friskiest of Santa Claus’ reindeers could not have outdone her in capers.

"I guess I’ll buy grandma some ’fumery," she announced, as her youthful aunt, flushed a becoming pink by the violence of her exertions, struggled with the refractory leggings. "And I’ll buy grandpa a naughty-mobeel, and Dick a candy cane." There was no purpose of partiality in Dorothy’s apportionment of her gifts. She adored her grandparents equally, and really preferred Dick to any other member of the family, since he was the only one of the number who could turn somersaults, an accomplishment Dorothy esteemed above all others. But if an automobile was desirable, so was a candy cane. Dorothy had not reached the point of estimating a gift by its money value.

"Your present is all buyed, Aunt Peggy. Grandma did it, but it’s a secret. Want me to tell you?"

"O, no!" Peggy left off buttoning Dorothy’s coat, and clapped her hands over her ears. "You mustn’t tell secrets," she explained hurriedly. "They’re to be kept till Christmas."

"But I don’t like secrets to keep," protested Dorothy, unconsciously voicing the sentiments, of some older people. "I like ’em to tell: Aunt Peggy your present’s white with pink edges, and--"

The entrance of Mrs. Raymond, with six shining new pennies to add to Dorothy’s Christmas funds, diverted her thoughts from the dangerous topic. If each of the glittering coppers had been a gold piece they could not have been received with greater rapture. Dorothy galloped about the room, planning Christmas benefactions with the reckless liberality of a millionaire, and Peggy was so encouraged by this rapid development of generosity as to suggest, "And you’re going to buy something for the poor children, aren’t you, Dorothy, the children who don’t have any Christmas?"

Dorothy reflected. Suddenly her little face blossomed into a pensive sweetness beautiful to see.

"I know, Aunt Peggy," she exclaimed, with the triumph of one who has found a happy solution to a puzzling problem. "I know. The poor children can have the outside of my nuts."

"The outside! Why, she means the shells, mother. I don’t see how you can laugh." Peggy looked reproachfully at her mother who had suddenly become interested in the view from the window. "Think how terrible it would be if she should grow up selfish."

"She has time to outgrow lots of things, dear, while she’s growing up," said Mrs. Raymond comfortingly, and turned to kiss the rosy mouth of her impatient granddaughter. As Peggy and Dorothy went hand in hand down the stairs, a little voice was wafted back to her. "Your present’s a secret, grandma. It’s going to be ’fum--" And Mrs. Raymond guessed that a resolute hand clapped over Dorothy’s too communicative lips, accounted for the sudden breaking off of the sentence.

Dorothy had been so excited over the prospect of spending her twenty-six cents that Peggy deemed it best not to mention the momentous interview which was to preceed the shopping. On the way down town, she broached the subject. "Dorothy, how would you like to see Santa Claus?"

Dorothy immediately stood up on the seat. "Aunt Peggy!" she exclaimed with trembling earnestness, "Are we going to the North Pole?"

"I’m afraid we’re not bundled up enough for such a cold journey," laughed Peggy. "But I guess we’ll find Santa on the third floor at Myers and Bates. And, if he’s there, you can tell him what you want most for Christmas."

"If I ask him for a dolly-baby’s carriage, do you s’pose he’ll shake his head?" cried Dorothy, lurching as the car jolted, and precipitating herself into Peggy’s arms. "Will he ’member how I slapped Sally, ’cause she wouldn’t let me eat out of Taffy’s plate?"

"Probably he’ll forgive you for that, if you’re very, very sorry," returned Peggy, smiling as she thought of the gift stored at Priscilla’s, to be safe from Dorothy’s prying. "Anyway, it won’t do any harm to ask him."

On the third floor of the department store, as Peggy had conjectured, a somewhat bored and stolid looking Santa Claus distributed mechanical pats on the heads of the children gathered about him, and nodded encouragement to their artless confidences. Dorothy gazed with half fearful fascination at his wealth of snowy hair, looking all the whiter in contrast to his florid complexion. Whether or not Santa Claus in the flesh fell short of her expectations, Peggy did not know, but whatever the explanation, she found it necessary almost to drag Dorothy to the august presence.

Her turn came after an interminable waiting. A big hand patted the top of Dorothy’s head and a deep voice asked, "An’ what are you afther wantin’ for Christmas?" Considering a life-long residence at the North Pole, Santa Claus’ accent was surprisingly suggestive of Tipperary.

Dorothy did not reply and Peggy nudged her. "Tell him what you want for Christmas, darling."

"A pair of mittens," Dorothy said faintly.

"Mittens!" exclaimed the astonished Peggy. "Why, I thought--" But Santa had nodded, and clapped his hand on the red head of the boy next in line. "And what would this foine lad be wantin’ for Christmas?"

The two moved on. Then Dorothy hid her face in Peggy’s skirts, smothering a wail.

"I don’t like Santa Claus," she sobbed. "And I hate mittens. I’ll frow ’em away. I’ll let Taffy eat ’em up."

"Then why did you tell him you wanted mittens?" asked Peggy, fighting back her laughter, as she realized the seriousness of the situation, from Dorothy’s point of view.

"Cause he didn’t look as if he’d give me a doll-carriage. He looked as if I hadn’t been a good girl. O, dear! O, dear!"

The situation was becoming embarrassing as Dorothy’s sobs grew more and more violent. People turned to stare, and Peggy hastily suggested a remedy.

"I tell you what, Dorothy. We’ll go back and tell him it was a mistake, and that what you really wanted was a doll-carriage."