"I don't know what to make of Rhoda," I heard her say. "She won't hang up her stocking. I hope that she is not going to be sick. It would be dreadful to have one of the children sick at Christmas time. Her head is quite hot."
I felt my head. It was hot.
I lay awake for a long time thinking of things. I considered the twins and their stockings, and grandmother's delight in the morning. Somehow I had to think a great deal about grandmother in order to keep myself from crying. Grandmother did not know what I was doing for her. The little boy must be getting ready to come right now. Off in the distance I could hear sleigh-bells, perhaps his sleigh-bells, now near, now far away, and in the pauses between the soft throb of the organ over in the church, and a voice singing a hymn, the one that I knew about angels and the manger with the Child. It was very beautiful. I sighed a little, sleepily. After all I was happy.
Then in a moment it was day, bright day, and in the next room there was a confused murmur of voices and a hurried scamper of feet. Dick shouted excitedly. Somebody beat a drum with a low rumble like soldiers, not as a little boy would beat a drum, but as my father might if he were teaching a little boy. Somebody marched pitapat about the room, and somebody danced by the fireplace.
"Go back to your cribs," my mother cried, uneasily. "You'll get your death of cold!"
On the chair by the side of my bed there was a stocking, with queer knobby places, which meant oranges, and square places, which meant candy. Right on top there was a blue velvet hat trimmed with white feathers, and against the stocking there leant a picture-book. I looked at them incredulously. Santa Claus had not understood! Or else he had thought that I loved my presents better than I did my grandmother! I kissed the hat and the picture-book twice, and then I put them sternly back on the chair. I knew what I should do. Santa Claus would find that I meant what I said.
"Did you like the picture-book, Rhoda?" my father inquired at the breakfast table.
"Yes," I answered, hurriedly.