Show M Have lo uTh This Habit By tJ Margaret Morison rH JANE FOOT If f I LIE second Sunday In December r TIIE I Iwa was wa the day that June Jane Foot regularly regularly regu- regu 4 made out her ChrIstmas list She 4 was a very busy woman and the system sYB- sYB tem she had hod worked out years before ot of disposIng ot of Christmas shopping pleased her efficient soul mIghtily She dId not have to make out a new i list more than once In several years The paper before her she had hod wrItten i five Christmases ago She had simply revIsed It from time to time by taking off or adding new names ThIs year I several of the names had blue pencIl I crosses after them Each year Jane went to a certaIn wholesale house and bought In n large quantity some one article She found J that It was really not dIfficult to find i something Impersonal that was mote more 1 or less appropriate for all her ber list I ThIs Christmas she had bought paper weights ts Each paper weIght came done up already In a paste board box Jane had only to sUp slip In a card and do up the package in white paper paper and strIng one evening sufficed MeanwhIle Meanwhile Mean Mean- whIle she congratulated herself on the Intelligence with which she had reduced reduced re- re ChrIstmas giving to a minimum of 01 effort thought time and expense Jane always alwa's counted on Cousin The The- I ophIluS for her ChrIstmas dinner ShE made no effort to see her cousIn or hIs wIfe durIng the year to be sure and she made no pretense of carIng anythIng anything any any- thIng about them but they had always always al- al ways provIded her with cranberry and turkey she had come to take ChrIstmas dInner with them for grant grant- ed So far thIs year no Invitation had bad come to her ChrIstmas morning dawned rainy and chill On the arrival of at the post post- n n rH v- v man she found that she would have several everal new names on her list to blue Finally a package turned up addressed In the hand writing ot of cousin so that was the explanation they were sendIng her invitation in- in thIs year with her present t As she undid the tho wrappings the shape within began to assume familiar lines A t rack book I Where had she seen this before Her mind ran ian back to four years that ago Christmas she had bought racks book at the wholesale house Was this the bookrack she had sent Cousin or one onel teat l lat some mutual frIend had passed on to another mutual friend to be passed on in turn to Cousin lus Ius and so finally back to her herself her her- self So CousIn cared no nomore nomore more about her Christmas than she did about hIs Evidently other people had the habit babIt of a a business s ot of ChrIstmas had as Jane contemplated her dInnerless day and her returned remembrance she no longer seemed to herself so so clever Outside a street band began to ploy play God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen and then the habit ot of making a business ot of Christmas suddenly seemed a very bad busIness IIA HAVE VB YOU TillS THIS HABIT HO o by Newspaper Service r |