CHAPTER XCHRISTMAS AT HOME
WHATEVER it was Dot wanted to tell Santa Claus, he was not to hear it this Christmas. When the four little Blossoms woke Christmas morning, it was already light and they tumbled downstairs to find the four stockings bulging with knobby packages. They made so much noise that they awoke everyone else in the house and Norah served breakfast a half hour earlier than usual.
“Could I open one bundle, Mother?” Twaddles kept saying. “Could I open one bundle? Just that little square one. That doesn’t look exciting, Mother.”
“That little square one happens to be marked with my name, young man,” said Father Blossom, “and I don’t intend to have any surprises spoiled ahead of time.”
The Blossom family never opened their Christmas gifts till after breakfast Christmas morning. The children had their stockings and that was supposed to keep them contented till it came time to open the parcels; but often they thought they just could not wait another minute after the first peep at the little mountain of white paper packages under the tree.
“I declare, Twaddles, you remind me of a bumble bee on a hot griddle,” said Uncle Dave laughingly. “I never saw anyone in such a hurry to get through his breakfast; now I call these hot rolls first-rate and I need another cup of coffee, please, Margaret,” he added to Mother Blossom.
“Dave, I think you’re real mean,” scolded Aunt Miranda, but she spoke so gently, no one thought she really meant to scold. “How can you sit there and drink another cup of that hot coffee when you know these children are counting the minutes till they can open their presents? It isn’t good for you to drink that much coffee, anyway.”
“All right, I won’t take the second cup,” saidUncle Dave meekly. “I seem to have had my breakfast, then, Margaret.”
“May we be ’scused, Mother?” shouted the four little Blossoms. “Please, Mother? Is it time to open the things now, Mother?”
Mother Blossom laughed and said they would all go into the living-room and look at their presents. And in ten minutes that beautiful, orderly room was a sea of white tissue paper and seals and string and pink and blue cotton. How Aunt Miranda laughed when she unwrapped one canvas glove!
“I couldn’t afford to buy two of them,” Dot explained, “because I had to buy a present for Mother and Daddy, too. But you can use one hand, can’t you, Aunt Miranda?”
“Why, of course, I can,” Aunt Miranda said heartily. “I’ll wear it when I’m fussing with my garden this spring, Dot, and think of you every time I wear it.”
Aunt Miranda had knitted a lovely scarf of brushed wool with mittens to match for each of the children, and a tam-o-shanter hat for Meg and one for Dot. The four little Blossoms weredelighted with these, as they might well be. Dot’s set was of scarlet wool, Meg’s was a delicate blue, Bobby had brown and Twaddles’ set was a light buff color. Uncle Dave had whittled each of the boys a ship, and for Meg he had made a little chain of curious wooden beads and another smaller chain for Dot.
It took a long time to see all the presents for there were a good many of them and everyone wanted to show his gifts to everyone else. Sam was very proud of the little diary Meg had given him and he promised to write in it every day; Norah laughed till she cried over the cologne bottle Bobby gave her for he had pulled the cork out to smell of it after he got it home and the cologne had either evaporated or had been spilled and the tiny bottle was quite empty. But as Norah said, when she thanked Bobby, it still smelled exactly like cologne. Twaddles had bought a pocket-knife with six blades for Uncle Dave and not one of them would open. But Uncle Dave declared he liked that kind of a knife because it always looked well and yet there was no danger that he would cut himself.
Each of the four little Blossoms, with much panting and counting of their pennies, had managed to buy Father Blossom a present and another for Mother.
“I’m so overcome I don’t know how to say ‘thank you,’” announced Father Blossom when he had Bobby’s ash tray on the table beside him, Meg’s red stickpin in his tie, Dot’s paper weight on his desk in the den and the handkerchief Twaddles had given him in his pocket.
Mother Blossom was delighted with the cup and saucer Meg gave her and she declared that the pin tray Bobby had chosen for her was exactly what she needed for her dresser and that Dot must have known she wanted another glass dish. But when she came to Twaddles’ present Mother Blossom looked puzzled.
“What in the world can this be?” she said, unwrapping it slowly.
They all crowded around her while she undid the paper and when she held up an enameled pot, such as Norah used to boil the potatoes in, everyone looked surprised. Except Twaddles.
“Isn’t it nice?” he urged. “Course it has alittle hole in it, but that was why I could buy it for ten cents. It used to be thirty cents, Mother. Don’t you like it?”
“Why, Twaddles, of course I do,” said Mother Blossom, kissing him. “I like it very much and you must have loved me dearly to buy such a large kettle. I’ll find some way to use it, even if there is a little hole in it.”
After all the presents had been seen, and the four little Blossoms had so many toys and games that Father Blossom said folks must have made a mistake and thought they didn’t have a single thing to play with before, Mother Blossom reminded them that they were to feed the birds. The children did this every year, tying pieces of suet to long strings and hanging these in the trees where the birds could easily find them. They also sprinkled plenty of bread-crumbs in dry sheltered places, off the ground so that no cats should bother the birds at dinner.
“The snow’s awful deep,” said Bobby, stamping in from helping to feed the birds. “Couldn’t we go coasting, Mother?”
“After dinner, dear,” replied Mother Blossom.“If you went now, you would have to hurry back. After dinner you may all go and wear your new scarfs and mittens, too.”
Christmas dinner was a wonderful affair, with a huge brown turkey and a plum pudding surrounded by a wreath of holly. Philip and Annabel Lee had an extra good meal, too, in the garage where they preferred to spend most of their time. Philip seemed to feel that he was really Sam’s dog and Annabel Lee liked to sleep on the old fur robe Sam kept especially for her.
“So you’re going coasting, hey?” said Uncle Dave, when after dinner the four little Blossoms began to bundle themselves up and Bobby went down cellar and brought up the sleds. “Did you ever hear the story, Meg, about the little girl who coasted into a snow bank and wasn’t seen again till the next spring?”
“Oh, no,” answered Meg, her eyes round with wonder. “Was she all dead, Uncle Dave?”
“Mercy, I should hope not!” said Uncle Dave, his eyes twinkling more than ever. “You see,it was spring the next day by the calendar, though there was snow on the ground.”
“Dave, you shouldn’t tease the children,” reproved Aunt Miranda, coming into the hall and knitting as she walked. “They won’t know, pretty soon, when you are in earnest and when you’re not.”
“I like to hear stories,” said Meg, pulling her tam down over her yellow hair. “Don’t you want to come coasting, Uncle Dave?”
“Well, no, I’d rather stay home and smoke,” replied Uncle Dave placidly. “I’ve had my day coasting. When I was the age of Dot, my father made me a sled and I went up on the roof and coasted off the woodshed and was in bed a week.”
“I wouldn’t be putting such notions in the heads of children, Dave,” said Aunt Miranda, gently. “They’ll be wanting to coast off the roof next.”
“No, we can’t,” said Twaddles sadly. “We haven’t any woodshed.”
The four little Blossoms had two sleds, just alike; one for Meg and Dot and the other forBobby and Twaddles. Wayne Place Hill was the finest coasting spot in Oak Hill and when they reached it this afternoon, they found a crowd of girls and boys already enjoying the fun. Some of them had new Christmas sleds and some, like the four little Blossoms, had sleds that were almost new and some had old, old sleds that were battered and scarred and tied up with rope to make them last. And, strange to say, the children who had the oldest sleds seemed to be having as good a time as the ones with brand-new shiny sleds.
Meg was immediately surrounded by little girls who wanted her to “take us down.” Meg was only six years old, but she could steer a sled as well as Bobby and her small friends knew it.
“Don’t take Hester,” said Marion Green to Meg. “She always screams and makes folks think she is hurt. And once she grabbed my brother and pulled him right over backward.”
Marion Green and Hester Scott were both in Meg’s class at school. Hester was a fat littlegirl and generally smiling. But now she looked ready to cry.
“I haven’t been down the hill once this whole afternoon,” she declared. “I’ll lend Dot my sled, Meg, if you’ll take me down. And I won’t scream a tiny bit, honestly I won’t.”
“All right, I’ll take you,” said Meg briefly. “Let Dot have your sled and she can play round with it till I come back. She can’t coast down alone either.”
Hester knelt on the sled behind Meg, and Bobby obligingly gave them a send-off push. The moment she felt the rush of air, Hester forgot her promise.
“Stop it!” she begged. “Oh, Meg, please stop. I can’t breathe! Ow! Somebody stop us! Ow, we’re going to hit that red sled! Oh, Meg, please, please——”
She flung her arms around Meg’s neck and leaned back with her whole weight. Up came Meg’s hands, the sled shot to one side and the two girls tumbled off into the snow.
“I told you so! I told you so!” Marion kept saying as she ran down toward them, and Dotand Twaddles and Bobby came running, too. “She always does that.”
“I don’t either!” protested Hester. “But I couldn’t breathe or anything, and I was scared.”
“That’s just like a girl,” said Fred Baldwin in disgust. “They always get scared.”
“Who always gets scared?” asked Stanley Reeves, one of the high school boys, hearing this sentence as he was passing the group on his way up hill.
“Why, I don’t think girls are all like that at all,” said Stanley, when he had heard Fred’s explanation. “I tell you what we’ll do—we’ll clear the hill and let the girls have a race. Any girl who is willing to steer her own sled may enter. Come on back to the top and we’ll settle this little matter.”
Fred Baldwin walked beside Bobby.
“Say, Bobby,” he said in an undertone. “Palmer and Bertrand and I want to see you about something. Can you come over tomorrow?”
“Is it about the fire?” asked Bobby in quick alarm. “Has Mr. Bennett said anything more?”
“Yes, he has,” admitted Fred. “I can’t tell you now. You come over to my house tomorrow morning.”
“You come over to our house,” suggested Bobby. “Bring the boys. I said I’d help the children start a snowman in the yard. We can go out in the garage and talk and nobody will hear us.”
Fred said they would come and then he hurried on to watch the coasting race. But Bobby’s pleasure in the sport was spoiled. He began to worry again about the fire in the carpenter shop. What had Mr. Bennett been saying?