ets
things. I could do it myself if I'd a mind to."

Mr. Detwiller felt that there was more envy than truth in this last
remark, and he was rash enough to speak up for justice: "You could if
you'd a mind to? Yep. If you'd a mind to! That's what somebody
said about Shakespeare's plays. 'I could a wrote 'em myself if I'd a
mind to,' says he, and somebody else said, 'Yes, if you'd a mind to,'
he says. And that's about it. Any body could do what Mizzes Budlong
does if they had the mind to; but the thing is, she's got the mind
to. She goes after the gifts--and gits 'em. She don't almost git
'em, and she ain't goin' to git 'em. She gits 'em. And what gits me
is how she gits 'em."

"Roscoe Detwiller, if you're goin' to praise that woman in the
presence of your own lawful wife, I'll never speak to you the longest
day I live." "Who's praisin' her? I was just sayin'--"

"Why, Roscoe Detwiller, you did, too! And I should think you'd be
ashamed of yourself."

"Say, what ails you? Why, I was roastin' her to beat the band."

"And to think that on Christmas day of all days I should live to hear
my own husband that I've loved and cherished and worked my fingers to
the bone and never got any thanks and other women keepin' two and
three hired girls, and after him denyin' his own children things to
get expensive presents for a shameless creature like that Budlong
woman--"

All over Carthage on Christmas afternoons couples were similarly at
loggerheads over Mrs. Budlong's annual triumph.

Now of course Mrs. Budlong did not get all those presents without
giving presents. Not in Carthage! It might have been possible to
bamboozle these people one Christmas, but never another. Mrs.
Budlong gave heaps of presents. Christmas was an industry with her,
an ambition; Christmas was her career. It had long ago lost its
religious significance for her, as for nearly everybody else in
Carthage. Even Mr. Frankenstein (the Pantatorium magnate) is one of
the most ardent advertisers of Christmas bargains, while Isidore
Strouther and Esau Streckfuss are "almost persuaded" every December.
They might be entirely persuaded if it were not for the scenes they
witness in their aisles during the last weeks of Yuletide and the
aftermath of trying to collect from the Gentile husbands during
Billtide.

Mrs. Budlong's Christmas presents were of two sorts: those she made
herself and those she made her husband pay for. He was the typical