nd broken-spirited. Ted's enthusiasm seemed
to grate on her, for she answered sharply:

"Christmas, indeed. I can't see that it is anything for us to rejoice
over. Other people may be glad enough, but what with winter coming on
I'd sooner it was spring than Christmas. Mary Alice, do lift that
child out of the ashes and put its shoes and stockings on. Everything
seems to be at sixes and sevens here this morning."

Keith, the oldest boy, was coiled up on the sofa calmly working out
some algebra problems, quite oblivious to the noise around him. But he
looked up from his slate, with his pencil suspended above an obstinate
equation, to declaim with a flourish:

"Christmas comes but once a year,
And then Mother wishes it wasn't here."

"I don't, then," said Gordon, son number two, who was preparing his
own noon lunch of bread and molasses at the table, and making an
atrocious mess of crumbs and sugary syrup over everything. "I know one
thing to be thankful for, and that is that there'll be no school.
We'll have a whole week of holidays."

Gordon was noted for his aversion to school and his affection for
holidays.

"And we're going to have turkey for dinner," declared Teddy, getting
up off the floor and rushing to secure his share of bread and
molasses, "and cranb'ry sauce and--and--pound cake! Ain't we, Ma?"

"No, you are not," said Mrs. Grant desperately, dropping the dishcloth
and snatching the baby on her knee to wipe the crust of cinders and
molasses from the chubby pink-and-white face. "You may as well know it
now, children, I've kept it from you so far in hopes that something
would turn up, but nothing has. We can't have any Christmas dinner
tomorrow--we can't afford it. I've pinched and saved every way I could
for the last month, hoping that I'd be able to get a turkey for you
anyhow, but you'll have to do without it. There's that doctor's bill
to pay and a dozen other bills coming in--and people say they can't
wait. I suppose they can't, but it's kind of hard, I must say."

The little Grants stood with open mouths and horrified eyes. No turkey
for Christmas! Was the world coming to an end? Wouldn't the government
interfere if anyone ventured to dispense with a Christmas celebration?

The gluttonous Teddy stuffed his fists into his eyes and lifted up his
voice. Keith, who understood better than the others the look on his
mother's face, took his blubbering young brother by the collar and
marched him