e whole brood. Molly Strawn, the washerwoman's daughter, got
more flowers than any one last year. And when they leave town to get a
job, if they are boys, or when some rude outsider breaks in with a
marriage license and despoils us of them, if they are girls, we all feel
the loss.

That's why Christmas means so much more to us. At Christmas time the
town children come home. Will Askinson comes home from Chicago. He's
doing very well up there, and it takes him two hours to get the length
of Main Street on the first day after he arrives. Every one has to hear
about it. Sadie Gastit comes home from Des Moines with a baby; regular
custom of hers. Sometimes she makes the same baby do for two years, but
usually it's a new one. I remember Sadie when she was only knee high to
a grasshopper, and her mother spanked her for climbing the Republican
flagpole during the McKinley campaign. The Flint children come down from
Chicago to visit their aunt. There were only a boy and girl when they
left fifteen years ago. Now there are eleven, counting wife, husband,
and acquisitions. Last year Ad Bridge brought a new wife home from
Denver to show us. Year before last Miss Annie Simms, who has been
teaching in Minneapolis, brought down a young man to show to her family.
She was going to be exclusive about it, but did it work? Not much. She
had to show him all around. We just happened over there in droves.
Everybody loves Annie and we were afraid for a little while that she was
going to be an old maid. The young man will bring her down this year I
suppose. They were married last June.

All the Homeburg children and grandchildren arrive in the last two days
before Christmas. They go home to their folks to deposit their baggage,
and then they all come down-town to the post-office, to get the mail
ostensibly but in reality to shake hands all around. The day before
Christmas is one long reception on Main Street. The old town fairly
hums.

As a matter of fact, Christmas is a good deal like a Union Depot. The
approaches are the most important part of it. By the day before
Christmas every one is feeling so good that things begin to happen.
People whom you have never suspected of caring for you come up to your
office and leave things--cigars, and toys for the children, and
Christmas cards. Men with whom you have quarreled during the year shake
hands violently all around a circle on the street, and when they come to
you they grab yours, too; and yo