"Bless her sweet eyes,"—meaning Katrina, not the widow,—"'Tis I will see that this cake gets to the Widow M'Carty's children. Does she not ask after the leg of my lame August as if it were her very own,"—meaning Katrina, not the widow,—"and in my coat pocket have I not the singing-box she has sent him for Christmas,—and she with nine small kinder, too?"—meaning the widow, not Katrina.
Thus soliloquizing, he marked a basket in which he deposited the pudding, and gave it to his driver, telling him to leave it at the widow's on the way back to the store.
"HE PICKED UP THE CARD AND READ"
Katrina tied up the second pudding and placed it on the table from which the first had been removed just as Clerk Reiman entered the door. Remembering Katrina's request, he went to the table, and reading the card, concluded that the package beside it contained the cake destined to make happy the nine small children of the Widow M'Carty. He put it in a basket, marked it for the widow, and gave it to his special driver, who was just starting off with his load.
Katrina's mind was on the anticipated joys of the evening, and she performed her task mechanically, thinking all the time of Johann and longing for the arrival of the sleighing party.
Ten more puddings were enveloped in their wrappings of lace-edged tissue paper; ten more puddings were deposited, one by one, on the table in the front of the store; ten more clerks, seeing the card beside a package,—for each in his hurry forgot to drop the card in his basket,—consigned a pudding to the care of his own driver, charging him to deliver it, without fail, to the Widow M'Carty with a "Merry Christmas from Katrina Baumgärtner."
Katrina had wrapped up the last pudding, when the sound of a horn, a chorus of voices, and the music of sleigh-bells caused her to run to the door once more. She opened it to come face to face with the gallant Johann. Joyfully donning her wraps, she hastened away to join the sleighing party, leaving the thirteenth pudding to its fate.
A few moments later the baker came out of his office, and seeing the puddings gone, nodded his head with satisfaction and said: