andles, real ornaments, and an orange, a stocking
of candy and nuts, and a doll for each girl, and a knife for each boy
of her grandchildren, all of whom she invited for dinner. Adam, 3d,
sat at the head of the table, Mrs. Bates at the foot. The tiniest tots
that could be trusted without their parents ranged on the Dictionary
and the Bible, of which the Bates family possessed a fat edition for
birth records; no one had ever used it for any other purpose, until it
served to lift Hiram's baby, Milly, on a level with her roast turkey
and cranberry jelly. For a year before her party Mrs. Bates planned for
it. The tree was beautiful, the gifts amazing, the dinner, as Kate
cooked and served it, a revelation, with its big centre basket of red,
yellow, and green apples, oranges, bananas, grapes, and flowers. None
of them ever had seen a table like that. Then when dinner was over,
Kate sat before the fire and in her clear voice, with fine inflections,
she read from the Big Book the story of the guiding star and the little
child in the manger. Then she told stories, and they played games
until four o'clock; and then Adam rolled all of the children into the
big wagon bed mounted on the sled runners, and took them home. Then he
came back and finished the day. Mrs. Bates could scarcely be persuaded
to go to bed. When at last Kate went to put out her mother's light, and
see that her feet were warm and her covers tucked, she found her crying.

"Why, Mother!" exclaimed Kate in frank dismay. "Wasn't everything all
right?"

"I'm just so endurin' mad," sobbed Mrs. Bates, "that I could a-most
scream and throw things. Here I am, closer the end of my string than
anybody knows. Likely I'll not see another Christmas. I've lived the
most of my life, and never knowed there was a time like that on earth
to be had. There wasn't expense to it we couldn't easy have stood,
always. Now, at the end of my tether, I go and do this for my
grandchildren. 'Tween their little shining faces and me, there kept
coming all day the little, sad, disappointed faces of you and Nancy
Ellen, and Mary, and Hannah, and Adam, and Andrew, and Hiram and all
the others. Ever since he went I've thought the one thing I COULDN'T
DO WAS TO DIE AND FACE ADAM BATES, but to-day I ain't felt so scared of
him. Seems to me HE has got about as much to account for as I have."

Kate stood breathlessly still, looking at her mother. Mrs. Bates wiped
her eyes. "I ain't s