“It’s bad to have your head clawed,” said the queerest of the old ladies, who had left her room attired in a flannel petticoat and a seal-skin jacket, “but it’s much worse to be burned alive.”
And before Weejums went away, all the old ladies clubbed together, and bought her an uncomfortable silver collar with her name on it, and a jingling padlock that scared the mice.
But something had happened that more than made up to Weejums for having to wear this collar and seem grateful for it.
When the fire was over, Mrs. Winslow was found in the back yard, up a tree!
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHRISTMAS EVE
IT was Christmas Eve again, and Mrs. Wood sat alone with Weejums before the fire downstairs. Franklin had stayed up to help fill the stockings; but now he too was gone, and the ticking of the clock sounded very loud.
It was the first Christmas Eve that she had ever spent by herself, and her thoughts went back to the time when the children’s father had been with her, and the last few hours of this day were the most beautiful in all the year.
When Grandmother was there, she kept one from thinking too much, although she too may have remembered other Christmases, spent with him who had been the children’s father, and her little boy. But Grandmother was not here to-night, and there was nothing to keep one from thinking—nothing at all.