u begin to talk elaborately as if
nothing had happened--a good deal like two women wading through a formal
call; and it makes you feel so good that pretty soon you buy a box of
Colorado Durable cigars and you go over to the office of some man for
whom you have cherished an undying hatred, because he didn't vote for
you for the school board. You peek in his door, and if he isn't there
you go in and leave the cigars with your compliments.

There's never been a Christmas at home when I haven't been operated on
for a grouch of this sort, and most always it comes the day before. If I
had my way there wouldn't be any Christmas--only the day before. On the
day before you're so tickled over what the other folks are going to get
from you, and so full of pleased anticipation over what you may get from
the others, that good humor just bursts out all over you like spring
waters from the mountainside.

On Christmas Eve in Homeburg we all go to the Exercises to hear the
children perform. They build churches in Homeburg with big doors, so
that they can get big Christmas trees in them, and we grown-ups go
early in order to hear the kids squeal with wonder when they come in and
see those thirty-foot miracles in candles and tinsel, down in front.

Homeburg children are divided into two classes--those who get all of
their presents on the church Christmas trees and have to worry through
the next day without any additional excitement, and those who have to
sit through the Christmas Eve exercises with only a sack of candy to
sustain them and who land heavily the next day. The discussion as to
which is the better way has raged for a generation, anyway; at least my
chum and I discussed it every year when we were boys, he adhering to the
Christmas tree plan, and I to the homemade Christmas. And last year,
when he came back, we began it all over again, he claiming it was cruel
for me to make my children wait until Christmas Day, and I pitying his
poor youngsters for getting done with Christmas before it began.

Anyway, Christmas Eve is a grand occasion in the churches, and every
year I notice with amazement that some youngster whom I remember as
having been formally introduced to society through her birth notice only
a few weeks ago, seems to me, has gotten large enough to get up on the
platform and speak a piece. They do it at the most unheard-of ages. I
believe there are two-year-old orators in the Congregational Sunday
school. I get a good