December was not a very bright month for Davy and Prue. Very little snow fell, so they could not use their sleds. If it had not been for their gardens and their lessons, which took several hours each day, they would have been rather lonely, looking out on brown woods and meadows.
But there was the joy of Christmas coming, and this thought made them happier, as each day brought it nearer. They counted the weeks first, then the days, and at last the hours. And then they had secrets. Secrets from big Prue and the Chief Gardener, and secrets from each other. Sometimes little Prue whispered to big Prue, and did not want Davy to hear. Sometimes Davy whispered to the Chief Gardener, and stopped very quick and began to whistle, if Prue came into the room. Packages began to be brought in after dark, or when everybody else was upstairs, and then, one afternoon—the afternoon of that wonderful eve when stillness and mystery seem to gather on the fields—there was a row of stockings along the mantel, hanging ready for somebody to fill. Santa Claus, of course, must do that, but there were packages hidden here and there for the good old Saint to find and put where they belonged. And Prue and Davy were in bed almost before dark, because you see the time passes quicker if you are asleep, and the sooner to bed the sooner to sleep. But when big Prue came in to kiss them good-night she told them a story—the old sweet story of the Little Child who was born so long ago, and to whom the first gifts were brought by the wise men. And then she told how that little baby boy in the manger had become a sweet child, with games and playmates like other children, with toys and, perhaps, a little garden of his own, something as they had made during the summer-time. And she told also a little story which, perhaps, is only a story, but it is what it would seem might have happened to the Little Child of Bethlehem.
"Once," she said, "when he was playing he grew very tired and thirsty, and his playmate was very thirsty, too. So Jesus ran to the well for a cup of water, and hurried back with it without stopping to drink. But his playmate was greedy, for he seized the cup and drank it all, except a few drops at the bottom. Then he gave the empty cup to Jesus, who took it and let the last few drops fall on the grass, when suddenly from where they fell there flowed a little clear stream of water, with lilies-of-the-valley blooming along its banks."
"Please sing the verse about the story of old," said Davy, when she had finished.
So his mother sang:
"I think, when I read that sweet story of old,
How Jesus was here among men,
How he called little children as lambs to his fold,
I should like to have been with them then."
And it was only a moment longer that the Christmas Saint had to wait on the sand-man, for presently the door closed softly on the singer. Davy and Prue had entered the fair garden of sleep.