mamma got them at the grocer's where the big Santa Claus stood
on the shelf. They pranced about like so many little colts, and clung
to Joe by turns, shouting all at once, each one anxious to tell the
great news first and loudest.

Joe took them on his knee, all three, and when they had shouted until
they had to stop for breath, he pulled from under his coat a paper
bundle, at which the children's eyes bulged. He undid the wrapping
slowly.

"Who do you think has come home with me?" he said, and he held up
before them the veritable Santa Claus himself, done in plaster and all
snow-covered. He had bought it at the corner toy-store with his lucky
quarter. "I met him on the road over on Long Island, where 'Liza and I
was to-day, and I gave him a ride to town. They say it's luck falling
in with Santa Claus, partickler when there's a horseshoe along. I put
hisn up in the barn, in 'Liza's stall. Maybe our luck will turn yet,
eh! old woman?" And he put his arm around his wife, who was setting
out the dinner with Jennie, and gave her a good hug, while the
children danced off with their Santa Claus.

She was a comely little woman, and she tried hard to be cheerful. She
gave him a brave look and a smile, but there were tears in her eyes,
and Joe saw them, though he let on that he didn't. He patted her
tenderly on the back and smoothed his Jennie's yellow braids, while he
swallowed the lump in his throat and got it down and out of the way.
He needed no doctor to tell him that Santa Claus would not come again
and find her cooking their Christmas dinner, unless she mended soon
and swiftly.

It may be it was the thought of that which made him keep hold of her
hand in his lap as they sat down together, and he read from the good
book the "tidings of great joy which shall be to all people," and said
the simple grace of a plain and ignorant, but reverent, man. He held
it tight, as though he needed its support, when he came to the
petition for "those dear to us and far away from home," for his glance
strayed to the empty place beside the mother's chair, and his voice
would tremble in spite of himself. He met his wife's eyes there, but,
strangely, he saw no faltering in them. They rested upon Jim's vacant
seat with a new look of trust that almost frightened him. It was as if
the Christmas peace, the tidings of great joy, had sunk into her heart
with rest and hope which presently throbbed through his, with new
light and promise, and ech