A burst of laughter was their only reply.
“Very well,” he said, “but I shall certainly find Maddie if she is findable.”
“When you find her bring her to us,” said Mr. Douglas, “and we will see that she has proper clothing—that is the arrangement for each child.”
“No!” the doctor declared, “‘finding is keeping.’ I shall fit her out myself. Perhaps Jeanie can be persuaded to come with me and see how well I know what a little girl needs. Why shouldn’t I have a stocking hung up in my chimney, a Christmas tree on my hearth, a Christmas candle in my window?” he demanded smilingly.
“We have worked very hard and long to earn our part for the Christmas surprise for the city children,” continued Dorothy.
“Worked! Earned! Why, what did you work at and how did you earn anything?” the doctor asked, incredulously.
“Do tell us,” father begged. “I knew something was going on, but I have waited to be told about it.”
“Well,” said Dorothy, “you know if we did not put ourselves into it somehow, it would not be a true gift. We are not very big and cannot make many things that would be of any real value, and we have only the money father gives us. We have saved nearly all of that——”
“And,” Lois interrupted, “I put in the five-dollar gold piece Father Douglas gave me, because I routed the ‘think you can’ts,’ and learned to play the scales.”
“Yes, and we’ve found out that the ‘think you can’ts’ are really ‘don’t want tos,’” Dorothy explained earnestly. “Sometimes I don’t even want to want to,” she added pensively. “Jeanie told us she knew just the thing for us to do. Jeanie said, if we would do certain things which meant a great deal more to us and others than money, we could have all we needed and know we had earned it——”