nt as between author and publisher, and large returns were
anticipated.

Among the many letters which Clemens was just then writing to Howells
one was dated "Xmas Eve." It closes with the customary pleasantries and
the final line:

"But it is growing dark. Merry Christmas to all of you!"

That last was a line of large significance. It meant that the air was
filled with the whisper of hovering events and that he must mingle with
the mystery of preparation. Christmas was an important season in the
Clemens home. Almost the entire day before, Patrick was out with the
sleigh, delivering food and other gifts in baskets to the poor, and the
home preparations were no less busy. There was always a tree--a large
one--and when all the gifts had been gathered in--when Elmira and
Fredonia had delivered their contributions, and Orion and his wife in
Keokuk had sent the annual sack of hickory-nuts (the big river-bottom
nuts, big as a silver 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 b