CHAPTER XXMERRY CHRISTMAS
Themolasses candy was a great success and so was the school collection the next day. When Polly told Miss Elliott how they had collected the six dollars, the teacher thought it was such an interesting story that she asked Polly to tell it before the assembly. Polly was too shy, but Fred was persuaded, and when he had finished speaking, the principal had a few words to say.
“I’d like the Riddle Club to know,” he said, “that we all admire their energy and generosity. They could have asked their parents for the money, but instead they held this novel meeting. And the girl who won the prize for the riddle could have kept the money for something else, but she chose to send it to girls who have nothing. To-day is the first time I have heard in detail of the Riddle Club, but I shall always remember it after this morning.”
Dear, dear, wasn’t the Riddle Club pleased and embarrassed and proud, all at once!
“Carrie Pepper looked as though she could cheerfully bite you, Polly,” said Jess, at recess. “I don’t believe she liked to hear us talked about that way.”
“Oh, she’s all right,” said Polly. “If you don’t look out, Jess, you’ll be like Fred. He can’t say one good thing about Carrie. I don’t believe he even speaks to her now.”
School closed two days before Christmas, and the party, which the entire school attended, was one long two hours of fun and laughter. Margy and Polly played their duet and there were recitations. A huge Christmas tree was trimmed entirely with things to eat. Popcorn and peanuts and strings of cranberries and doughnuts tied on with red ribbons, cookies strung together like necklaces, red apples, oranges cut in fancy shapes, net bags of candy, bars of chocolate done up to look like presents—that tree looked as any Christmas tree would look trimmed for a party, but there wasn’t a single decoration on it that couldn’t be eaten.
The children ate everything on it, too, before going home, and then it was carried out in the school yard and planted in the snow to serve as a dinner table for the birds. The older boys climbed it and fastened bits of suet to the highest branches, and Christmas morning those whopassed the yard saw flocks of hungry birds enjoying a holiday feast.
“We must fix Riddle Chap up for Christmas,” suggested Polly, as they walked home after the party.
Riddle Chap had had his tree to hold long ago, but as Polly pointed out, there was nothing on it.
“He needs a cheerful necktie,” Fred declared. “I’ll get him that red one with purple spots that Daddy never wears.”
“We’ll put suet in the tree for the birds,” said Jess. “They’ll like that. And we can hang a wreath around his neck.”
“We’ll trim him all over!” cried Polly, joyously. “Give him a wreath and wind ground pine around his body and stick a holly spray in his hat.”
They were as good as their word, and Riddle Chap, on Christmas Eve, was as gay as any snowman who ever had Christmas dreams. He wore a wreath about his throat, a fearfully bright necktie under his chin, holly in his hat, and his arms and legs were wound with ropes of ground pine.
Polly and Margy liked to consider themselves almost grown up—at times—and Fred was sure he was much older than Ward and Artie. Jess,who was a year older than Margy, liked to romp too well to desire “grown-upness,” as she called it. But when Christmas Eve came, each member of the Riddle Club discovered that hanging up one’s stocking was half the fun of Christmas, and Polly and Margy and Fred were just as eager as Artie and Jess and Ward.
“Come over early,” they told each other when they said good-night, after the snowman was arrayed. “Come over early and see our things.”
Artie may have started for Ward’s house—at least, that is what he always said he was doing, though his mother declared he must have been dreaming. Anyway, long before daylight, the Marley household was awakened by a tremendous crash.
Mr. and Mrs. Marley rushed out from their room, meeting Polly in the hall.
“Where’s Artie?” she gasped.
“Here he is,” called Artie, sweetly. “I guess I kind of fell downstairs. The globe fell off the lamp on the newel post.”
Artie wasn’t hurt—though it was a wonder, for the broken glass from the globe was strewn all around him—and he did not seem to be sleepy at all. Perhaps the fall had awakened him. However, his father said that no one was to think ofopening Christmas presents at half-past three in the morning, and Artie had to go back to bed and wait till daylight for further excitement.
Just as soon as it was light, Artie and Polly were downstairs to examine their stockings. Whoever had filled them, knew exactly how the job should be done and Ward and Jess, and Margy and Fred, had the same report to make.
There were the red beads Polly wanted in the toe of hers; packed in among the candy and nuts in his, Artie found the jackknife he had long coveted; Ward, who had once said he never had enough to eat, was delighted with a stocking stuffed from toe to top with nothing but food of one sort or another; Jess found a new pair of gloves rolled up in hers, to take the place of the missing one. Margy had beads, too, only hers were blue; and Fred had a fountain pen with his initials on it in gold.
After the stockings came breakfast, and then it was time to see the larger presents. Later, Polly and Artie went to the Williamsons and helped Fred and Margy try on their new skates, then the four went to the Larues to help Jess and Ward admire the two new sleds, and then they all went back to the Marley house where Polly and Artie displayed a jumble of new skates, sweaters and muff and games and books that made onewonder what these children would have left to wish for another Christmas.
“We’ll all go to the post-office,” said Polly. “The mail is in now.”
And it was, a delightfully exciting mail which held cards and letters and packages for every one in the three families, from cousins and aunts and uncles who lived far away.
“Oh, my!” gasped Artie, when the packages were sorted out and he had his in his arms. “Look! Here’s something from Mr. Kirby!”
Well, there was a package for each member of the Riddle Club from Mr. Kirby. They knew he had sent them, for his name and address were on the outside wrapper. Each box was exactly alike in shape and size. Whatcouldbe in them?
“Let’s open them,” said Artie, sensibly.
There were a number of wrappers, and from the last one tumbled a small white box and a card that read, “With best Christmas wishes to Artie Marley, from his friends, Tony Kirby and Will Adams.”
Each card said the same thing, substituting the various names of the Riddle Club members.
“Oh! Oh! Oh!” cried Polly, the moment she had opened her box. “How perfectly lovely!”
The little box was lined with blue velvet, andon the blue velvet lay a gold signet ring. There were two letters engraved on the face. They were R.C. Polly lifted out the ring and turned it over. Inside it was engraved with her name and the date.
“And they fit!” said Margy, in surprise, as six rings were slipped on six fingers. “He must have asked our mothers what size we wear!”
And that was exactly what Mr. Kirby had done. He had written to find out what ring sizes to order, and the three mothers had kept his secret carefully.
“He gave us our lovely club pins, and now we have club rings,” said Polly. “I never knew any one so nice!”
“Let’s hurry and write him a letter right away, and Mrs. Williamson can take it to-morrow,” suggested Artie.
Mr. and Mrs. Williamson were supposed to spend New Year’s with the Kirbys in Rye, because they had not gone at Thanksgiving time. But Mrs. Williamson had discovered that she couldn’t go away from home for New Year’s Day, and now they were to leave the next day and have a little visit during holiday week. Fred and Margy were to stay with the Marleys while their parents were away.
The next morning, when Mr. and Mrs. Williamsonset off for Rye, they carried a letter signed by all the Riddle Club members, thanking Mr. Kirby and Mr. Adams for their gifts and telling them how much happiness they had given.
“Gee, isn’t it cold,” said Fred, as the Williamson automobile disappeared around the turn in Elm Road. “I’ll bet you it is thirty degrees below zero.”
Mr. Larue overheard him and laughed.
“You wouldn’t be standing there so complacently, Fred, if it were as cold as that,” he said. “This is just good skating weather.”
It was so cold and clear that Jess declared she saw “miles and miles” when she looked across the river, now frozen over. The ground was covered with snow, of course, and at every step this crunched under foot. When a wagon went past the wheels screeched, a sure sign of a cold day.
“Isn’t it great!” bubbled Ward. “We have new skates and there’ll be skating as soon as they get the river swept off; there isn’t any school, so we can have all the fun we want; and there’s good coasting, too, and some of us have new sleds. And I haven’t eaten all my candy up, either,” he added.
“You’re one satisfied person,” commented Fred,blinking, for the sun on the snow was dazzling. “Let’s go down and watch them sweep off the river. Maybe they won’t let us on yet.”
But “they” were willing for River Bend folk to go skating, for the ice was firm and thick. Later it would be cut to fill ice-houses, but as a rule the children could count on good skating through January. A group of men were busily at work this morning, with brooms, brushes and horse-drawn scrapers, taking the snow off the ice and getting it ready for the skaters. The sun was helping, too, and the Riddle Club members decided that by noon the river would be in fine condition.
“We’re going up to the pond, Mother,” said Polly, at the lunch table. “No, we’ll not be cold. You never get cold skating.”
“Don’t be late for supper,” cautioned Mrs. Marley. “And be sure you are dressed warmly. It will be much colder toward night.”
“It’s cold enough now,” grumbled Margy, who would have liked to go skating in July, if that had been possible.