"I am really sorry to have you go," said Toby Tolman the day that Dave left. "I shall miss you. I will take you up to town, as Timothy has come back."
Dave received his pay from Timothy, for whom he had acted as substitute, and then with the keeper left the lighthouse.
The journey to Shipton over, Dave quickly walked to Uncle Ferguson's, and was welcomed warmly.
X.
THE CHRISTMAS GIFT.
Christmas was approaching--Christmas with its white fields, and its skies that seem to part like the opening of doors in a big blue wall, and from it issue the sweet songs of the Bethlehem angels. Still more acceptable is it when our souls seem to open like doors that fly apart, and out to our neighbour and all souls everywhere go assurances of peace and good-will.
To Dave Fletcher and Dick Pray Christmas meant an end of school-days and a return home.
"You will come and see us 'fore you go," was Bart Trafton's meek request to Dick and Dave when he met them in the street. Dick made the first call, just three days before Christmas. Things did not have a festival appearance in the Trafton home that day. Gran'sir was lying on a lounge not far from the fire, and his cough was shaking him harder than ever. Bart, just before Dick's call, had been down on the shore of the river to see if the last tide had remembered the poor, and deposited any more drift on the beach. He brought back only a puny armful, and this armful he divided between the oven and the fire, the first half to dry and be ready to start up the flames which the other half would be quite sure to put down and almost put out. Granny had been calling at a neighbour's, to borrow timidly a little tea, and met Dick just outside the door of the Trafton home. Such a difference as there was between youth with its ruddy cheeks and bright eyes, between plenty with its cheerful and contented spirit, and poor old Granny Trafton!
"Bartie wanted me to call," said Dick.
"Come in, come in," said granny, hospitably. "We're poor folks, but we're glad to see people."