nterest.

"What could you do for the chicken pie?" went on papa with a roguish
look in his eye, "or the plum-pudding?"

"Or the waisins?" broke in Tot anxiously.

"Tot has set her heart on the raisins," said papa, tossing the small
maiden up higher than his head, and dropping her all laughing on the
door-step, "and Tot shall have them sure, if papa can find them in
S----. Now good-bye, all! Willie, remember to take care of mamma, and I
depend on you to get up a Christmas dinner if I don't get back. Now,
wife, don't worry!" were his last words as the faithful old horse
started down the road.

Mrs. Barnes turned one more glance to the west, where a low, heavy bank
of clouds was slowly rising, and went into the little house to attend to
her morning duties.

"Willie," she said, when they were all in the snug little log-cabin in
which they lived, "I'm sure there's going to be a storm, and it may be
snow. You had better prepare enough wood for two or three days; Nora
will help bring it in."

"Me, too!" said grave little Tot.

"Yes, Tot may help too," said mamma.

This simple little home was a busy place, and soon every one was hard at
work. It was late in the afternoon before the pile of wood, which had
been steadily growing all day, was high enough to satisfy Willie, for
now there was no doubt about the coming storm, and it would probably
bring snow; no one could guess how much, in that country of heavy
storms.

"I wish the village was not so far off, so that papa could get back
to-night," said Willie, as he came in with his last load.

Mrs. Barnes glanced out of the window. Broad scattering snowflakes were
silently falling; the advance guard, she felt them to be, of a numerous
host.

"So do I," she replied anxiously, "or that he did not have to come over
that dreadful prairie, where it is so easy to get lost."

"But old Tim knows the way, even in the dark," said Willie proudly. "I
believe Tim knows more'n some folks."

"No doubt he does, about the way home," said mamma, "and we won't worry
about papa, but have our supper and go to bed. That'll make the time
seem short."

The meal was soon eaten and cleared away, the fire carefully covered up
on the hearth, and the whole little family quietly in bed. Then the
storm, which had been making ready all day, came down upon them in
earnest. The bleak wind howled around the corners, the white flakes by
millions and millions came with it, and hurled themselves upon