alk
about de times dey have down w'ere we come from at Christmas; N'Yoick
ain't in it wid dem, you kin jist bet." And Blinky, who was a New
Yorker clear through with a New Yorker's contempt for anything outside
of the city, had promptly replied with a downward spreading of his
right hand, "Aw fu'git it!"

Jimmy felt a little crest-fallen for a minute, but he lifted himself
in his own estimation by threatening to "do" Blinky and the cloud
rolled by.

'Liza Ann knew that Jimmy couldn't ever understand what she meant by
an old-time Christmas unless she could show him by some faint approach
to its merrymaking, and it had been the dream of her life to do this.
But every year she had failed, until now she was a little ahead.

Her plan was too good to keep, and when Jimmy went out that Christmas
eve morning to sell his papers, she had disclosed it to him and bade
him hurry home as soon as he was done, for they were to have a real
old-time Christmas.

Jimmy exhibited as much pleasure as he deemed consistent with his
dignity and promised to be back early to add his earnings to the fund
for celebration.

When he was gone, 'Liza Ann counted over her savings lovingly and
dreamed of what she would buy her boy, and what she would have for
dinner on the next day. Then a voice, a colored man's voice, she knew,
floated up to her. Some one in the alley below her window was singing
"The Old Folks at Home."

"All up an' down the whole creation,
Sadly I roam,
Still longing for the old plantation,
An' for the old folks at home."

She leaned out of the window and listened and when the song had ceased
and she drew her head in again, there were tears in her eyes--the
tears of memory and longing. But she crushed them away, and laughed
tremulously to herself as she said, "What a reg'lar ol' fool I'm
a-gittin' to be." Then she went out into the cold, snow-covered
streets, for she had work to do that day that would add a mite to her
little Christmas store.

Down in the street, Jimmy was calling out the morning papers and
racing with Blinky Scott for prospective customers; these were only
transients, of course, for each had his regular buyers whose
preferences were scrupulously respected by both in agreement with a
strange silent compact.

The electric cars went clanging to and fro, the streets were full of
shoppers with bundles and bunches of holly, and all the sights and
sounds were pregnant with the mess