his makes us shiver, because we don't know just how long it will
be before the Homeburg women do make up their minds to have more
ballot. But when they do, we'll brace up like men and give it to them if
the State will let us. We just naturally hate to disappoint our
women-folks.

XII

CHRISTMAS AT HOMEBURG

_And What It Means_

Now don't urge me to stay longer, Jim, because I'm going to anyway. Just
to prove it, I'll take another of those gold-corseted cigars of yours,
which would elevate me from the masses to the classes in three puffs if
I smoked it back home. I didn't begin telling you how much I have
enjoyed myself because I intended to go and wanted to start the soft
music. I just wanted to begin on the job, that was all. It's going to
take me an hour, at least, to tell you and Mrs. Jim what this meal has
meant for me.

Oh, I know there have been better meals in history perhaps. I suppose
now and then a king gets real hungry and orders up a feed that might
have a shade on this one--just a shade. That's as far as I'll
compromise, Mrs. Jim. You needn't argue the matter. I'm a regular mule
in my opinions. But if you had given me crackers and cheese, and old,
decrepit flexible crackers at that, it would have been all the same. I'd
have devoured them with awe and thanksgiving, and I'd have marveled at
my luck. Here it is Christmas Day, and while half a million strangers in
New York have been eating their hearts along with the regular bill of
fare at boarding-houses and restaurants, I have been grabbed up and
taken into an actual home where they have a Christmas tree!

I always was lucky, Jim. Every time I fell out of a tree in my youth, I
landed on my head or some other soft spot, but this beats any luck I
ever had. Think of it! Me sitting around in the sub-cellar of gloom
yesterday afternoon with my family a thousand miles away, and deciding
to go to Boston for Christmas just because I'd have to travel ten hours
and that would be some time killed; and then, when I went to my
boarding-house for a clean collar, you called me up, just as I was
leaving. There's a special department of Providence working on my case.
Got a permanent assignment. And you are a Deputy Angel, Mrs. Jim.
Gratitude! You couldn't get my brand of gratitude anywhere. They don't
keep it in stock. Say the word and I will go back and eat a third piece
of mince pie, and die for you.

I don't want to seem critical. It's hard for me to crit