“But,” objected Mrs. Merrill, “you girls forget that things cost money—a lot of money these days. And you can’t possibly buy all those things and get any Christmas of your own too.”
“Humph!” grunted Mary Jane as she squeezed her face up tight in an effort to write, “then we won’t have one of our own! Haven’t we got Marie Georgiannamore and a cart and a nice house and warm clothes—and—everything?”
That settled it. There would be a tree and dinner and a lot of fun in the Merrill house on Christmas Day, but the presents were to go to their adopted family to make their Christmas one never to be forgotten.
If you have ever planned a Christmas for somebody who never, in all their lives had one, you will know something about the fun that Mary Jane and Alice had in the time that was left before Christmas. They were about the busiest girls in all Chicago! They hurried home from school and they worked Saturdays but, actually, as soon as they got one thing done they thought of something else they wanted to make or buy and they had to begin all over again. They made cookies and candies and dressed dolls, one for each girl, and made a complete set of covers and pillows and “fixings” for an adorable doll bed that Mr. Merrill made in the evenings. Alice had to work pretty hard to get the pajamas all finished in time for there was considerable work on each pair; but she got them finished and she could hardly wait till Christmas to take them over to their family.
Mary Jane finished the muffler and mittens though she almost had to knit while she ate—towards the last—it takes a good many stitches to make a muffler big enough for an eight year old boy. The muffler was a deep crimson and the mittens a warm shade of gray with three rows of crimson in the wrist end; Mary Jane had picked colors she was sure Tom would like.
At last the twenty-fourth of December came around—cold and snowy and just the kind of a day for making a Christmas. The trees were bought and set on the balcony, the turkeys, two of them, were in the pantry ready to dress and three big baskets were set on the dining-room table ready for packing.
“Now, then,” said Mrs. Merrill, “if you have everything ready, I think we’d better pack all the things we can now, because when Dadah comes home there’ll be plenty to do.”
Mary Jane thought the packing was the most fun of anything she had ever done. They packed all the doll things in one basket, doll things and toys and three nice books. Of course the doll bed wouldn’t go in the basket; it had to have a package all by itself. A second basket was for clothing, the pajamas—and no one would ever guess that a girl as young as Alice had made those charming garments—the muffler, the mittens, one pair for each child, warm underwear and a dress for each girl (one of the nicest of Alice and Mary Jane’s outgrown frocks). Mr. Merrill had added a nice flannel shirt for Tom and Mrs. Merrill put in a warm sweater for the good mother.
“That’s a basket they’ll like to open,” said Alice, proudly, as she tucked the brand new comforter Mrs. Merrill had made, around the top, “they’ll be so happy they won’t hardly be able to wait till they can put ’em on!”
The third basket was fully as interesting as the others. It was a big, big one and in it the girls packed groceries, cans of vegetables and soup and sugar—a very little bit to be sure for there wasn’t much to be had, but the Merrills had decided to send exactly half of what they had—and oranges for breakfast and cereals and bread. Then on top, they were to put cookies and candy and the turkey. But of course those last things would go in in the morning, just before the baskets were taken away.