oung doctor rose, and only the marquise saw and wondered that he was
nervous, restless and pale. As best he could he told them what Christmas
was and what it meant to the world; and he had scarcely finished when
a hand beckoned to him from the door. Leaving one of his friends to
distribute the presents, he went outside to discover that one vandal
had come on ahead, drunk and boisterous. Promptly the doctor tied him
to a tree and, leaving Pleasant Trouble to guard him, shouldered a
Winchester and himself took up a lonely vigil on the mountainside.
Within, Christmas went on. When a name was called a child came forward
silently, usually shoved to the front by some relative, took what was
handed to it, and, dumb with delight, but too shy even to murmur a word
of thanks, silently returned to its seat with the presents hugged to
its breast--presents that were simple, but not to those mountain mites:
colored pictures and illustrated books they were, red plush albums,
simple games, fascinators, and mittens for the girls; pocket-knives,
balls, firecrackers, horns, mittens, caps, and mufflers for the boys;
a doll dressed in everything a doll should wear for each little girl,
no one of whom had ever seen a doll before, except what was home-made
from an old dress or apron tied in several knots to make the head and
body. Twice only was the silence broken. One boy quite forgot himself
when given a pocket-knife. He looked at it suspiciously and incredulously,
turned it over in his hand, opened it and felt the edge of the blade, and,
panting with excitement, cried:

"Hit's a shore 'nough knife!"

And again when, to make sure that nobody had been left out, though all the
presents were gone, the master of ceremonies asked if there was any other
little boy or girl who had received nothing, there arose a bent, toothless
old woman in a calico dress and baggy black coat, her gray hair straggling
from under her black sunbonnet and her hands gnarled and knotted from work
and rheumatism. Simply as a child she spoke:

"I ain't got nothin'."

Gravely the giver of the gifts asked her to come forward, and while,
nonplussed, he searched the tree for the most glittering thing he could
find, a tiny gold safety-pin was thrust into his hand, the whiter hollow
of the marquise's white throat became visible, and that old woman was made
till death the proudest in the hills. Then all the women pressed forward
and then the men, until all the ornaments were