“Here! Here! Here!” exclaimed Mr. Merrill, “one at a time, ladies, one at a time! If you doubt that there will be trees in Chicago, you should see what I saw this morning as I went down to work. A train load of Christmas trees—yes, sir!” (for he noticed the girls could hardly believe him) “a whole train load of trees. And I see by the paper this evening that a boat load has arrived, too, so there will be no shortage of trees.”
“Then we can have one,” said Mary Jane, with a satisfied sigh.
“And let’s put it in front of this foolish little gas log,” suggested Alice, “then we won’t think about a real fireplace.”
“And there are plenty of poor folks,” said Mrs. Merrill, going back to Mary Jane’s question, “only they will not be so easy to get together, as back at home. How would you like to take a Christmas party to some family instead of having a party at home as we did last year?”
The girls hardly knew what to say about that new idea so Mrs. Merrill explained further. “I telephoned to the Associated Charities this very day,” she said, “and they gave me the names of a fatherless family in which there are two girls about your ages, and one boy. I thought we could plan a fine Christmas for them and then, on Christmas morning, take it over and surprise them.”
“Oh, let’s do that, mother,” said Mary Jane happily, “then we’d be like a real Santa Claus only we’d be a morning Santa. May we do it, surely?”
“I thought you’d like the idea,” said Mrs. Merrill, “so I got lists from the association as to just what was most needed. Alice, if you’ll get a pencil and paper, we’ll figure it all out.”
Making plans was the girls’ favorite way of spending an evening so they whisked the cover off the dining table, pulled up chairs for four and went to work list-making.
“Tom,” began Mrs. Merrill, consulting her list, “hasn’t a bit of warm clothing.”
“Why couldn’t I knit him a muffler and some mittens?” asked Mary Jane. “I remember how and I haven’t knitted anything since the war stopped.”