ging about three hundred and ninety pounds. Should you handle this
imported cotton you would notice that the bales from India are very
heavily banded, often as many as thirteen bands encircling them. This
is partly because the long staple of this variety of cotton must not be
injured by heavy pressure, and partly because they have not in India
the excellent facilities for compressing lint that we have here. The
Egyptian bales are the largest transported; they run as high as seven
hundred pounds and have about eleven bands to hold them."

"It must be a stunt to get them aboard ship," grinned Carl.

"I've taken my turn at the job," responded the captain drily. "We swing
them down into the hold by means of cranes and have now learned to land
them quite neatly. Nevertheless, even though they are only bundles of
cotton wool I should not fancy having one of them drop on my head,"
concluded he with a twinkle.

CHAPTER XI

A FAMILY CONGRESS

Meantime while the McGregors discussed cotton and the sunny southern
fields in which it grew, Christmas was approaching and Baileyville,
shrouded in wintry whiteness, began to feel the pulse of the coming
holiday. Shop windows along the main street were gay with holly and
scarlet. Every alluring object was displayed to entice purchasers and
such objects as were not alluring were made to appear so by a garnish
of ribbon or flashing tinsel. There were Christmas carpet sweepers,
Christmas teakettles, Christmas coal hods and how surprised and
embarrassed they must have been to find themselves dragged out of their
modest corners and, arrayed in splendor, set forth before the public
gaze. Nothing was too mundane to be transformed by the holiday's magic
into a thing mystic and unreal. Even such a prosaic article as a
washtub, borrowing luster from the season's witchery and in shining
blue dress became a thing to covet and dream about.

Then there was the army of foolish trifles that owed their existence
merely to the season's glamor and would have had no excuse for being at
a time when the purchaser's head was level and his judgment sane. And
in addition to all these there were the scores upon scores of gifts
useful, fascinating, desirable, but beyond range of possibility at any
ordinary period of the year.

Oh, it was a time to keep one's balance, the Christmas holidays! The
very stones of the streets glistened golden and the crisp air breathed
enchantment. If one's nerves were no