girls, girls,” she said, with a little tremble in her voice, “I can never thank you enough. It was so kind and sweet of you. You don’t know how much good you have done me.”
Breakfast was an unusually cheerful affair at No. 16 that morning. There was no skeleton at the feast and everybody was beaming. Miss Allen laughed and talked like a girl herself.
“Oh, how surprised I was!” she said. “The roses were like a bit of summer, and those cats of Nellie’s were so funny and delightful. And your letter too, Jean! I cried and laughed over it. I shall read it every day for a year.”
After breakfast everyone went to Christmas service. The girls went uptown to the church they attended. The city was very beautiful in the morning sunshine. There had been a white frost in the night and the tree-lined avenues and public squares seemed like glimpses of fairyland.
“How lovely the world is,” said Jean.
“This is really the very happiest Christmas morning I have ever known,” declared Nellie. “I never felt so really Christmassy in my inmost soul before.”
“I suppose,” said Beth thoughtfully, “that it is because we have discovered for ourselves the old truth that it is more blessed to give than to receive. I’ve always known it, in a way, but I never realized it before.”
“Blessing on Jean’s Christmas inspiration,” said Nellie. “But, girls, let us try to make it an all-the-year-round inspiration, I say. We can bring a little of our own sunshine into Miss Allen’s life as long as we live with her.”
“Amen to that!” said Jean heartily. “Oh, listen, girls — the Christmas chimes!”
And over all the beautiful city was wafted the grand old message of peace on earth and good will to all the world.
The Christmas Surprise at Enderly Road
“Phil, I’m getting fearfully hungry. When are we going to strike civilization?”
The speaker was my chum, Frank Ward. We were home from our academy for the Christmas holidays and had been amusing ourselves on this sunshiny December afternoon by a tramp through the “back lands,” as the barrens that swept away south behind the village were called. They were grown over with scrub maple and spruce, and were quite pathless save for meandering sheep tracks that crossed and recrossed, but led apparently nowhere.
Frank and I did not know exactly where we were, but the back lands were not so extensive but that we would come out somewhere if we kept on. It was getting late and we wished to go home.
“I have an idea that we ought to strike civilization somewhere up the Enderly Road pretty soon,” I answered.
“Do you call that civilization?” said Frank, with a laugh.
No Blackburn Hill boy was ever known to miss an opportunity of flinging a slur at Enderly Road, even if no Enderly Roader were by to feel the sting.
Enderly Road was a miserable little settlement straggling back from Blackburn Hill. It was a forsaken looking place, and the people, as a rule, were poor and shiftless. Between Blackburn Hill and Enderly Road very little social intercourse existed and, as the Road people resented what they called the pride of Blackburn Hill, there was a good deal of bad feeling between the two districts.
Presently Frank and I came out on the Enderly Road. We sat on the fence a few minutes to rest and discuss our route home. “If we go by the road it’s three miles,” said Frank. “Isn’t there a short cut?”
“There ought to be one by the wood-lane that comes out by Jacob Hart’s,” I answered, “but I don’t know where to strike it.”
“Here is someone coming now; we’ll inquire,” said Frank, looking up the curve of the hard-frozen road. The “someone” was a little girl of about ten years old, who was trotting along with a basketful of school books on her arm. She was a pale, pinched little thing, and her jacket and red hood seemed very old and thin.
“Hello, missy,” I said, as she came up, and then I stopped, for I saw she had been crying.
“What is the matter?” asked Frank, who was much more at ease with children than I was, and had always a warm spot in his heart for their small troubles. “Has your teacher kept you in for being naughty?”
The mite dashed her little red knuckles across her eyes and answered indignantly, “No, indeed. I stayed after school with Minnie Lawler to sweep the floor.”
“And did you and Minnie quarrel, and is that why you are crying?” asked Frank solemnly.
“Minnie and I never quarrel. I am crying because we can’t have the school decorated on Monday for the examination, after all. The Dickeys have gone back on us … after promising, too,” and the tears began to swell up in the blue eyes again.
“Very bad behaviour on the part of the Dickeys,” commented Frank. “But can’t you decorate the school without them?”
“Why, of course not. They are the only big boys in the school. They said they would cut the boughs, and bring a ladder tomorrow and help us nail the wreaths up, and now they won’t … and everything is spoiled … and Miss Davis will be so disappointed.”
By dint of questioning Frank soon found out the whole story. The semi-annual public examination was to be held on Monday afternoon, the day before Christmas. Miss Davis had been drilling her little flock for the occasion; and a program of recitations, speeches, and dialogues had been prepared. Our small informant, whose name was Maggie Bates, together with Minnie Lawler and several other little girls, had conceived the idea that it would be a fine thing to decorate the schoolroom with greens. For this it was necessary to ask the help of the boys. Boys were scarce at Enderly school, but the Dickeys, three in number, had promised to see that the thing was done.
“And now they won’t,” sobbed Maggie. “Matt Dickey is mad at Miss Davis ‘cause she stood him on the floor today for not learning his lesson, and he says he won’t do a thing nor let any of the other boys help us. Matt just makes all the boys do as he says. I feel dreadful bad, and so does Minnie.”
“Well, I wouldn’t cry any more about it,” said Frank consolingly. “Crying won’t do any good, you know. Can you tell us where to find the wood-lane that cuts across to Blackburn Hill?” Maggie could, and gave us minute directions. So, having thanked her, we left her to pursue her disconsolate way and betook ourselves homeward.
“I would like to spoil Matt Dickey’s little game,” said Frank. “He is evidently trying to run things at Enderly Road school and revenge himself on the teacher. Let us put a spoke in his wheel and do Maggie a good turn as well.”
“Agreed. But how?”
Frank had a plan ready to hand and, when we reached home, we took his sisters, Carrie and Mabel, into our confidence; and the four of us worked to such good purpose all the next day, which was Saturday, that by night everything was in readiness.
At dusk Frank and I set out for the Enderly Road, carrying a basket, a small step-ladder, an unlit lantern, a hammer, and a box of tacks. It was dark when
