nd Mis'
Moran when Mis' Winslow breathlessly returned to them. They were deep in
tradition, and in method, its buttonhole relation. During the weary
period when nutrition has been one of the two great problems the
tremendous impulse that has nourished the world was alive in the faces
of the two women, a kind of creative fire, such as had burned in Mary at
the cutting of her pattern. Asparagus escalloped with toast crumbs and
butter was for the moment symbol of all humanity's will to keep alive.

"Ladies," said Mis' Winslow, with no other preface, "what do you think?
Mary Chavah's little boy is coming from Idaho with a tag on, and when do
you s'pose he's going to get here? Christmas Eve."

"Christmas Eve," repeated Mis' Bates, whose mind never lightly forsook
old ways or embraced a contretemps; "what a funny time to travel."

"Likely catch the croup and be down sick on Mary's hands the first
thing," said Mis' Moran. "It's a pity it ain't the Spring of the year."

Mis' Winslow looked at them searchingly to see if her thought too far
outdistanced theirs.

"What struck me all of a heap," she said, "is his getting here then.
_That_ night. Christmas Eve."

The three woman looked at one another.

"That's so," Mis' Moran said.

"Him--that child," Mis' Winslow put it, "getting here Christmas Eve,
used to Christmas all his life, ten to one knowing in his head what he
hopes he'll get. And no Christmas. And him with no mother. And her only
a month or so dead."

"Well," said Mis' Mortimer Bates, "it's too bad it's happened so. But it
has happened so. You have to say that to your life quite often, I
notice. I don't know anything to do but to say it now."

Mis' Winslow had not taken off her cloak. She sat on the edge of her
chair, with her hands deep in its pockets, her black knit "fascinator"
fallen back from her hair. She was looking down at her cloth overshoes,
and she went on speaking as if she had hardly heard what Mis' Bates had
interposed.

"He'll get in on the express," she said; "Mary said so. She don't have
to go to the City to meet him. The man he travels with is going to put
him on the train in the City. The little fellow'll get here after dark.
After dark on Christmas Eve."

"And no time for anybody to warn him that there won't be any Christmas
waiting for him," Mis' Moran observed thoughtfully.

"And like enough he'll bring a little something for Mary for a present,"
Mis' Winslow went on. "How'll she feel