as ever.

"Sharlie, Sharlie, let him go!" cried Nels, in a voice smothered with
laughter. "Ay go in dose parn; maype ha'll chase me."

His hope was well founded. The dog, observing this treacherous
occupation by the enemy of his last harbour of refuge, gave pursuit and
disappeared within the door, which Charlie, hard behind him, closed
with a bang. There was the sound of a hurried scuffle within. The dog's
barking gave place to terrified whinings, which in turn were suddenly
quenched to a choking murmur.

"Gome in, Sharlie, kvick!"

"You got him?" queried Charlie, opening the door cautiously. "Did he
bite you?"

"Na, yust ma mitten. Gat a sack or someding da die him oop in."

A sack was procured from somewhere, into which the dog, now silenced
from sheer exhaustion and fright, was unceremoniously thrust, after
which the sack was tied and flung into the wagon. This formidable
obstacle overcome and the Roneys still slumbering peacefully, the
rest was easy. The granary door was pried open and the wheat shovelled
hurriedly in upon the empty floor. Charlie then crept up to the house
and slipped his note under the door.

The sack was lifted from the now empty wagon and opened before the barn,
whereupon its occupant slipped meekly out and retreated at once to a far
corner, seemingly too much incensed at his discourteous treatment even
to fling a volley of farewell barks at his departing captors.

"Vell," remarked Nels, with a sigh of relief as they gained the road,
"Ay tank dose Roneys pelieve en Santa Claus now. Dose peen funny vay fer
Santa Claus to coom."

Charlie's laugh was good to hear. "He didn't exactly come down the
chimney, that's a fact, but it'll do at a pinch. We ought to have
told them to get a present for the dog--collar and chain. I reckon he
wouldn't hardly be thankful for it, though, eh?"

"Ay gass not. Ha liges ta haf hes nights ta hemself."

"Well, we had our fun, anyway. Sort of puts me in mind of old Wisconsin,
somehow."

From far off over the valley, with its dismantled cornfields and
snow-covered haystacks, beyond the ice-bound river, floated slow, and
sonorous, the mellow clanging of church bells. They were ushering in
the Christmas morn. Overhead the starlit heavens glistened, brooding and
mysterious, looking down with luminous, loving eyes upon these humble
sons of men doing a good deed, from the impulse of simple, generous
hearts, as upon that other Christmas morning, long ago, when t