he raked from under the snow. Father drove to town in the sleigh,
and the list of things to be purchased mother gave him as a reminder
was almost a yard long.

The minute they finished the outdoor work Laddie and Leon began
bringing in baskets of apples, golden bellflowers, green pippins, white
winter pearmains, Rhode Island greenings, and striped rambos all
covered with hoarfrost, yet not frozen, and so full of juice you had to
bite into them carefully or they dripped and offended mother. These
they washed and carried to the cellar ready for use.

Then they cracked big dishes of nuts; and popped corn that popped with
the most resounding pops in all my experience--popped a tubful, and
Laddie melted maple sugar and poured over it and made big balls of
fluff and sweetness. He took a pan and filled it with grains, selected
one at a time, the very largest and whitest, and made an especial ball,
in the middle of which he put a lovely pink candy heart on which was
printed in red letters: "How can this heart be mine, yet yours, unless
our hearts are one?" He wouldn't let any of them see it except me, and
he only let me because he knew I'd be delighted.

It was almost dusk when father came through the kitchen loaded with
bundles and found Candace and the girls still cooking.

We were so excited we could scarcely be gathered around the supper
table, and mother said we chattered until she couldn't hear herself
think. After a while Laddie laid down his fork and looked at our
father.

"Have you any objection to my using the sleigh to-morrow night?" he
asked.

Father looked at mother.

"Had you planned to use it, mother?"

Mother said: "No. If I go, I'll ride in the big sled with all of us.
It is such a little way, and the roads are like glass."

So father said politely, as he always spoke to us: "Then it will give
me great pleasure for you to take it, my son."

That made Leon bang his fork loudly as he dared and squirm in his
chair, for well he knew that if he had asked, the answer would have
been different. If Laddie took the sleigh he would harness carefully,
drive fast, but reasonably, blanket his horse, come home at the right
time, and put everything exactly where he found it. But Leon would
pitch the harness on some way, race every step, never think of his
steaming horse, come home when there was no one so wild as he left to
play pranks with, and scatter the harness everywhere. He knew our
father would