It was now growing close to that time so dear to children’s hearts,—and grown people’s, too, for that matter,—namely, Christmas.
The Hadleys had always made much of it, and, hampered as she was, Marian determined to celebrate in some manner. She had had to let Thanksgiving go by unnoticed, for the especial rite of that day is a loaded dinner-table, and she had bowed to the inevitable, but, though good dinners are in order of a Christmas Day, they are not the entire programme, and Marian’s fertile brain grew busy.
In her workbag was the roll of fine lawn of which she had been making handkerchiefs. One was partly made, and with careful planning there was enough material to make three more, leaving a few little scraps. In off moments, when the children were engaged in making love to the baby burro or busy at play on the beach, she hemmed the handkerchiefs, and then with her colored silks outlined Mother Goose pictures on them and wrote the children’s names in the corners. So far, so good.
Then she constructed three little dolls, each doll being made of one straight bone with a knob at one end that would do for the head, with a wishbone tied below to make the arms. One doll had wishbone legs too, but that exhausted the supply of wishbones, and the other two had to be content with legs that were not so nicely matched. Faces and hair she made with the lead-pencil, and little suits of underwear from the scraps of lawn, and she cut a piece out of the ruffle of her colored petticoat for the dresses and three cunning little sunbonnets. For Delbert she whittled out a little boat about three inches long and rigged it out with silken ropes and a lawn sail.
On Christmas Eve she gathered them about her in front of their fire up by the Cave, and told them Christmas stories till they were sleepy, and, to their glee, had them hang up their stockings before they crawled into the Cave and cuddled into bed.
Somewhat to her surprise, they insisted that she hang up her stocking too, which she did, wondering much what they had planned to surprise her with, for she knew now, by their dancing eyes and loving voices, that they had planned something, though she had not noticed anything mysterious in their behavior before.
In the morning she was careful to go down to the well for a pail of water the first thing, so as to give them a chance to fill her stocking, and, sure enough, upon her return she found it full to overflowing.
It seemed that for several weeks back Delbert and the little girls had been saving every pretty shell and feather they found for this purpose and they had accumulated a large assortment.
Shells, feathers, crabs’ claws and seaweed,—how sharp their bright eyes had been to spy out every pretty thing they passed! How industriously the little hands had gathered!
Marian’s heart swelled. How she praised that collection! And straightway after breakfast she hunted up a nice, safe, dry little cleft in the rock, a sort of a baby cave, where she arranged them all, sorting the feathers and tying them in bunches, and when all was in order fitted one of the little boards they had found in the cove in front for a door, so nothing should disturb the treasures.