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Show Christmas Gifts Dy Luella B. Lyons WITH more than a foot and a half of snow on the highway, high-way, the telephone lines down and not a chance of the mailman reaching them, Mary March bemoaned her negligence in putting off her Christmas shopping. And that very afternoon, the eight women of them living within a mile and a half of each other were to brave the drifts and hold their annual an-nual party, despite the weather. "One nice book in the house that is fit to give, and that had to have a tiny hole burned right smack in the center of the lid, too," she wailed to Bob March. "I've just had an idea and I'd better bet-ter care for It, being it's lonely," he aeciarea rather excitedly. "Where's that sheet of cellophane you peeled so carefully from off that box of mine the other day? Haul that out, get me that snapshot you had printed print-ed to send to my sister, and by that time .well, who knows !" Bob was always thinking up ways and means to cover up for her lack of planning and foresight, and she blessed him as she ransacked happily hap-pily for the desired items. But when she again joined Bob at the kitchen table, she gave a startled shriek. "Bob, dear, that was the only gift in sight and now you've ruined it," but he smiled on, his pen knife cutting cut-ting away that messy looking burn from the book lid. Then with an old wood burning set, he stippled the whittled edge of that hole in the leather binding. Then he backed that hole with a double piece of cellophane and bound the three edges to the Inner side of the book lid with a tiny band of purple leather leath-er Which mntehprt tha hunt In between the cellophane pieces Bob slipped the lovely tinted snapshot snap-shot of Mary. With a squeal of delight, de-light, Mary accepted the new deal In Christmas gifts. "The newest thing in fads. Bob, darling," she assured as-sured him delightedly. Such a tiny bit of work had turned a perfectly impossible gift into something rare that might have come straight from the gift shop. And after the women had raved over Mary's gift to the grab bag, Bob was given the surprise of his life. "What will you charge, Bob, to make over two or three books for me that very same way? One or two for the youngsters, too?" they exclaimed. Bob made every moment of his spare time count, doing over book-lids for a long time after that "Bless your bad memory, darling," he teases every time he makes another an-other entry in the cash book of this spare time Job of his. G. Western Newspaper Union. |