Show HER CHRISTMAS it was a nice little fluffy bundle full of life kicking and squirming by CLARA DEANE christmas was ras coming by leaps and bounds it was coming in a way to strike panic to the hearts of people e who rho never began to think of it till after thanksgiving and all over the country they were hastening to make embroideries and fancy work and calendars I 1 do hope said mrs martha iver son to her husband that fred and nealle will send mother a christmas present this year I 1 just cant can t for give them if they don t 0 well they will rill said her nus bus band they d t last year don dont t you remember 9 mother told me all about her presents every little thing and wh win it was from but not a word about them at last I 1 just asked her 0 1 I didn dian t get anything from them he said but you know they are just begin nii g housekeeping and their ex benses are 0 o heavy in the city huh ruh when I 1 know hat fred gets as good a salary as aou ou do and their apart ment costs them only thirty five dol lars a donth partly furnished and there theres s another thing john no one in the family has ever said one word to fred about going off oft out west and nver writing home one word tor for five years and nearly breaking mother s b heart eart 11 s never had one word of reproach mrs martha paused don t you think it would be all right if I 1 should write to him and make him realize once how happy he s made us all alla well my dear ft it doesn doean t seem to me that this is the psychological mo me ment fred tore away from us all years ago I 1 don t know just what was the matter but I 1 know he was discouraged and sore at heart and made up his mind that father had no use for him now he Is married and doing well and at last he has writ ten home or she has good little thing and mother la Is happier than the she has been for years no I 1 wouldn t write that letter to fred just now well perhaps not john you re so forgiving but I 1 do hope they wont won t forget mother this year mother her heart traveling its faithful rounds among the absent ones hoped so too christmas was always a time of stress and strain with her with the old fashioned feeling of economy strong upon her and not much money of her very own for spend ng she did her best with her little hadri made gifts and sent them oat out with a depressing feeling of their inadequacy her greatest trou brou ble had always been that other people gave her more than she was able to give them but this year her christ mas rose had a distinctly new thorn she couldn coulden t simply couldn coulden t have mrs martha look over the presents of another christmas and see nothing from fred and neelie and she was so afraid there would be nothing she believed she would drop a hint in her next letter to fred how nice it would rould be ff f you could come home for christmas but I 1 suppose that Is quite impossible as the dis tance and expense are so great we shall think of you we put our pres ants on the breakfast table in the same old way ard you know father Is getting a little old and I 1 think be he would be very much pleased it if there was a little remembrance from you she discarded this fred would certainly remember that father good man as he was as and fairly willing to pay all the chills bills never bothered about christmas neither making pres ants nor caring whether he received any and she could not write any more plainly perhaps he showed all his letters to his wife that was the penalty a mother paid for a may man s happily married she made up her mind to wait till the last hour of the day before christmas and then tf if nothing had come to slip quietly down town and buy something that they would be lively likely to send pend father vie the said that night re joining in the new happiness of be ing able to talk about the boy whose name had laid so long like a guilty secret between them we haven t heard from fred and neelia neelie for a couple of weeks and she a been so good about writing the last time ehe she said she wasn gasn t feeling so very well I 1 thought perhaps I 1 just thought of it haan t we better send them a christmas gift why yes mother you get and bend send something you too father I 1 wouldn t know what to get they ve probably got everything they need young people do somehow and I 1 wouldn t know what they want better send them a check and let them buy what they please 0 father she beamed at him and the grace that is god a gift to mothers kept her from saying you owe it to him you owe it to him he a your boy you know he a never had what the other boys have had instead she began talking about neelie freds fred 9 little girl wife I 1 know bhe she s just dear father and do you know I 1 think it Is because her own people are all dead that she was so anxious to know us I 1 think it was ras sweet of her to write that first let lot ter it takes women to hold families together the days raced by like telegraph poles past a car window the post man came and went leaving pack ages but none from the far best est she never wavered in her intention of JA ja d buying a gift if none ane at firs clr it seemed dreadful to sully the pun purl white christmas time with a lie he hel new england conscience never ie lo her call it anything else but the re rembrance mem brance of martha a crucial ques eions nerved her she t care toi fol herself but she wasn gasn t going to ba ha 4 fred and neelie weighed in the fam am ily fly balance and found wanting mindful of the warning of the co con burners sumers league she did her Christ christma mai shopping early so apparently di d everyone eise the crush bewildered bewilder ei her everybody was buying madly everybody seemed so rich late in the afternoon of the day before christmas after the last mail delivery she went down to buy the present that had not come her one little gift from neelie had been a daintily embroidered towel sent n the middle of the year just because she wanted to she stood at the counter hard t to a please everything was so overdone she thought she would buy a scarf foi for the dresser in fred s room the room they would have when they cams came home how could the weary sale woman know that she was if trying y I 1 J find something that looked as if 11 neelie had done it ita she had one narrow escape while she was wait ing for her package martha e came a me by I 1 VI A ell for two women who d did I 1 d theli their christmas shopping early said mar that but of course there theres s always some last thing that one forgets id I 1 d forgotten to get anything for elleen eileen atkins baby and john its god father she would never have tor for given me that a what brought me down mother was less communicative she merely said she was sorry she had had to come down and how was eileen a s baby and would john and martha be sure and come to breakfast on time in the morning 8 0 clock seemed late to father and then she hurried home guiltily through the early dark with her secret I 1 saw mother downtown tonight john at a she looked tired and worried I 1 wish she would let me do things for her and I 1 ive ve made up my mind to one thing if 11 there s nothing from fred and neelie I 1 in not going to say one word about it neither do you late that night mother put the as gifts at each plate and chain luckily she had neelie a 9 card ed and she laid it in plain sight on the dresser scarf it might save questions the surprise of opening packages package si was over and the kiei pleasure sure of chow shop i ing them to each other had begun when the thea doorbell rang she looked around the table they were all there and then in a minute fred was in the room with a queer little bundle in his arms which he pressed into hers a little bundle that stirred and woke and set her trembling with more happiness than could well be borne even on christmas morning and father was kissing a little worn wom an whose wistful face was ras a little thinner than in her picture and a bit travel worn and in another minute her new daughter was in her arms you see fred was saying we just thought we d surprise yuu and it has taken everything Xe we could scrape up to make the trip that s why ue didn dian t something in his mother a face stopped him but nothing could stop the little woman roman 0 yes that was why you see I 1 made all tle baby s things myself and I 1 had no time or strength left to work ork at christmas gifts but there is something from you nelie nelle with your card fred had made the round of the table and he and martha met above the accusing card the little woman looked aled but I 1 didn dian t she began mother rose to the occasion yes dear but it was the only thing I 1 do to make it seem as though you were all here copyright 1912 by the mcclure news paper syndicate |