er dollar almost, such nuts as few children of this
later generation ever see) when all this happy revenue had been gathered,
and the dusk of Christmas Eve had hurried the children off to bed, it was
Mrs. Clemens who superintended the dressing of the tree, her husband
assisting, with a willingness that was greater than his skill, and with a
boy's anticipation in the surprise of it next morning.

Then followed the holidays, with parties and dances and charades, and
little plays, with the Warner and Twichell children. To the Clemens home
the Christmas season brought all the old round of juvenile happiness--the
spirit of kindly giving, the brightness and the merrymaking, the gladness
and tenderness and mystery that belong to no other season, and have been
handed down through all the ages since shepherds watched on the plains of
Bethlehem.

CXXXIII

THE THREE FIRES--SOME BENEFACTIONS

The tradition that fires occur in groups of three was justified in the
Clemens household that winter. On each of three successive days flames
started that might have led to ghastly results.

The children were croupy, and one morning an alcohol lamp near little
Clara's bed, blown by the draught, set fire to the canopy. Rosa, the
nurse, entered just as the blaze was well started. She did not lose her
presence of mind,--[Rosa was not the kind to lose her head. Once, in
Europe, when Bay had crept between the uprights of a high balustrade, and
was hanging out over destruction, Rosa, discovering her, did not scream
but spoke to her playfully and lifted her over into safety.]--but
snatched the little girl out of danger, then opened the window and threw
the burning bedding on the lawn. The child was only slightly scorched,
but the escape was narrow enough.

Next day little Jean was lying asleep in her crib, in front of an open
wood fire, carefully protected by a firescreen, when a spark, by some
ingenuity, managed to get through the mesh of the screen and land on the
crib's lace covering. Jean's nurse, Julia, arrived to find the lace a
gust of flame and the fire spreading. She grabbed the sleeping Jean and
screamed. Rosa, again at hand, heard the scream, and rushing in once
more opened a window and flung out the blazing bedclothes. Clemens
himself also arrived, and together they stamped out the fire.

On the third morning, just before breakfast-time, Susy was practising at
the piano in the school-room, which adjoined the nursery. At one e