“It’s for you!” exclaimed Mary. “For your Christmas—to make you happy!”
“For our Christmas! To make us happy!” repeated the girl, slowly. “Oh, I—I didn’t think we’d ever have a Christmas—or be happy again.”
“Nor me,” said her brother. “Oh, how kind you are!”
“It was the jolly sailor who thought of it,” said Tommy.
“And we’re going home with you, and make you happier yet,” added Johnny, and then, before the jolly sailorman could stop them, Mary had seen a big red auto coming down the street.
“Here,” she cried, “we’ll all get into this. I know the man will let us.” And, when the auto came rumbling up, Mary said to the man who was steering it:
“Please take us, and this boy and girl, home to their house so we can help them have Christmas.”
“Why, certainly I will,” said the man, kindly. Then he helped Mary and Tommy and Johnny and the poor boy and girl into his auto, and he put in the big basket of good things, and away they all went.
“Here! Here! Come back, if you please!” called the jolly sailor, trying to stump along after them with his wooden leg. “You Trippertrots will be lost again, sure pop!”
But Tommy and Mary and Johnny were so interested in going to make a Christmas for the poor boy and girl, that they forgot the jolly sailor, and never heard him calling to them. And they went on and on, farther and farther away, and what happened when they got to the poor boy’s and girl’s house I shall have to tell you in the next story.