The doctor nodded understandingly.
"Do you believe Santa Claus will have enough turkeys to go around? Mamma says, if he hasn't, I may send Bill and Gerty some of mine. I'm going to try to eat a very little piece, but I like turkey, and I hope Bill and Gerty will have a whole one to themselves, and I hope Gerty will get a doll, and if she doesn't, I'll have to send her the one Santa Claus brings me."
"Why would you have to?"
"Why, 'cause I wouldn't be such a piggy-wiggy as to keep two, and she not have any. It wouldn't be nice of me, when I have Lily. Could you have lots of fings when you knew somebody else didn't have any?"
This was a home thrust, made so truthfully and innocently that the doctor wondered why all these years' Christmastide had not brought home to him such a reproach. He had eaten, drunken, been comfortable and care free, while just such opportunities had been waiting for him as this year offered.
"Well," he said, as he took his departure, "it's all right about Santa Claus, you tell Bill."
"And you won't tell anyone," whispered Elinor.
He assured her that the secret was safe, and went off with a very warm feeling inside. There seemed to be an expansiveness of light in the setting sun; a brightness about existence in general, which even cases of "yaller janders" and weak "bronicles" could not overshadow.
