"That's all. Isn't he a dear! Well, if he gets here on Christmas Day I sha'n't complain."
Blue Bonnet handed the little pink slip of paper which had been enclosed in the letter, to her grandmother.
"Take care of it for me, Grandmother. I don't need it any more than I do a sore thumb, as Uncle Joe used to say."
Christmas week dawned bright and clear. Real Christmas weather, Blue Bonnet thought one morning as she opened her window and looked out at the trees in the apple orchard with their burden of glistening snow.
Christmas was to be celebrated rather differently from last year. Since Uncle Cliff was not to arrive until Christmas morning, Blue Bonnet had been permitted to spend the preceding days much as she pleased, shopping, and enjoying the We Are Sevens' holidays with them.
Two days before Christmas she bounded in to her grandmother's presence in a great state of excitement.
"Grandmother!" she exclaimed, "I've got the loveliest idea! I was just over to Kitty Clark's, and the doctor is getting a Christmas tree ready for the people out at the Poor Farm. They are going to have it at four o'clock to-morrow afternoon, and he says that Kitty and I may go along and help if we want to. I asked him what he was going to give them, and he said not much, unfortunately, but a good time. He said he had hoped to be able to collect enough money this year to buy those old ladies a phonograph—you know—a Victrola—but everybody seems to feel so poor. I thought of the check Uncle Cliff sent me and I told the doctor about it. He didn't want to take it, but I said he just had to, and I ran home to get it. Where is it, Grandmother?"
"But—Blue Bonnet, you couldn't get a phonograph here in Woodford. Not the kind you would want—"
"No, of course not; but Doctor Clark said if you thought best for me to give the money he could telephone to Boston this noon, and they could get it here on the four-twenty train, without any doubt. Oh, Grandmother, please don't say no. Seems to me I can't stand it if you do. Don't you remember how old Mrs. Prior loved Alec's songs that day she was here to see us? Why, she just seemed starved—"
Mrs. Clyde rose and went to the foot of the stairs.