Show h When Christmas te 1 HARPER stepped from JJ her train A whole with Christmas only ten days That meant nearly three weeks for visiting round with old friends and just squatted before the big fireplace reading and Wouldn't Aunt Margaret and Uncle Jake be pleased and for she had not After three monotonous years In the department It would be She flashed a look down the there was wooden-legged th Things hadn't changed a bit In she The old looked then stumped If Bric Harper I he among your old friends Come to or House Is Uncle Sam two whole Out to Aunt Margaret After three years I I'd never have believed I could stay away that But miles too far for a poor girl to afford paying fare for a few days' Now it's a because I haven't taken a vacation In so Can you take me and my trunk right I'll ride with ye had no letter per asked the old whose face had been growing Anything the except they Your Aunt Margret said Christmas was so lonesome here she couldn't spend another like the last So three days ago she your Uncle Jack went into the next county to spend Christmas with a cousin who has a o I was by there the house did look dismal all shot there any one to look after the Dill boys was asked I A shrill hail came from a store front across from the wheedled the old ye mind four That mad shouter was Storekeeper Been a box Christmas stuff a an jest off this I take the box to then come an carry you an the trunk out to any o your girl They'll all be glad to have ye visit But had been thinking Invites Girl the box over to the Uncle she I'll run across to the post office while you're I want to write some And I won't embarrass any ot my girl You may carry me right out to the I know where Aunt Margaret hides the and I'm perfectly sure she and Uncle Jack would want me to go right there and use everything as my I'll take care of the poul- j I'll roast one of the turkeys for Christmas and cook everything that goes with pies and cakes and alL Won't It be can Invite a lot of your girl friends to eat with grinned the entering Into the agreed all want to eat at home on Then we'll have a round of nice But for the real Christmas I'm going to depend on their There are lots of nice girls In the department store who haven't any home and who will have to depend cn the cheap boarding-houses they live at I'll write a postal to Aunt Margaret and to five or six girls I know will be glad to spend a week or ten days with And Uncle I'll look round and then make out a list of groceries and other things I want you to bring out and any place where I can buy a Christmas none better than grow right down on your uncle's right I'll get the Dill boy to we'll rig up a nice any Christmas present chuckled old like to see Tomson pry the cover off that I be right over from the post The girls condemned to a pros boarding-house Christmas accepted Brice's invitation On the third day Old Sam brought the hilarious five out la his ancient express 9 Then the girls piled in like a whole Jolly Christmas in and the old farmhouse seemed liko to burst The Christmas tree was cut and drawn home with all the appropriate songs and carols and hums they could think and trimmed as never a Christmas tree had been trimmed Dressed In all sorts of the happy girls sang hymns hour after quitting only when they were too tired to And right In the midst of it the hearty voice of Uncle Jack roared through the mellowed by the happy laugh of Aunt Margaret going to have that dinky post office over there guffawed Uncle that postal four days before the R. F. D. Fifteen minutes after that we were on our Of we had to Five more to help wake the old house Whoopee I Why didn't you write so we needn't have left the lonesome Need More didn't you write so I'd have known what to retorted none of us laughed Aunt then we might not have these five extra nice I must get into the we've cooked and and declared Aunt Margaret matter how much you've There are all your old friends that must be Invited to come though they'll come And wc must Invite a lot of extra young people In evenings to help keep things Then my There's a wagon-load j in Mary didn't want us to so we brought all Jack's going into town this evening to buy what he can If any of your girls want to go along he'd like your Aunt we've got a tree ram-jammed protested can pack on the floor under the Now I'm going Into the Can't you hor Arm voice dropping I've just got to cook by |