ory nuts be good in
it? You know I have some left up in the attic, and I might crack them
softly up there, and don't you think they would be good?" he concluded
anxiously.

"Well, perhaps so," said mamma, anxious to please him and help him in
his generous plans. "I can try. If I only had some eggs--but seems to me
I have heard that snow beaten into cake would make it light--and there's
snow enough, I'm sure," she added with a faint smile, the first Willie
had seen for three days.

The smile alone he felt to be a great achievement, and he crept
carefully up the ladder, cracked the nuts to the last one, brought them
down, and mamma picked the meats out, while he dressed the two rabbits
which had come so opportunely to be their Christmas dinner.

"Wish you Merry Christmas!" he called out to Nora and Tot when they
waked. "See what Santa Claus has brought you!"

Before they had time to remember what a sorry Christmas it was to be,
they received their presents, a live bird, for each, a bird that was
never to be kept in a cage, but fly about the house till summer came,
and then to go away if it wished.

Pets were scarce on the prairie, and the girls were delighted. Nothing
papa could have brought them would have given them so much happiness.

They thought no more of the dinner, but hurried to dress themselves and
feed the birds, which were quite tame from hunger and weariness. But
after a while they saw preparations for dinner, too. Mamma made a crust
and lined a deep dish--the chicken pie dish--and then she brought a
mysterious something out of the cupboard, all cut up so that it looked
as if it might be chicken, and put it in the dish with other things, and
then she tucked them all under a thick crust, and set it down in a tin
oven before the fire to bake. And that was not all. She got out some
more cornmeal, and made a batter, and put in some sugar and something
else which she slipped in from a bowl, and which looked in the batter
something like raisins; and at the last moment Willie brought her a cup
of snow and she hastily beat it into the cake, or pudding, whichever you
might call it, while the children laughed at the idea of making a cake
out of snow. This went into the same oven and pretty soon it rose up
light and showed a beautiful brown crust, while the pie was steaming
through little fork holes on top, and sending out most delicious odours.

At the last minute, when the table was set and everything ready to