“Me too—O Miss Laura, can’t I help too?” Jim cried anxiously.
“Why, of course. We couldn’t get along without you, Jim,” half a dozen voices assured him before Laura could answer.
“I wish our old ladies could come to our tree,” Elsie Harding said to Alice Reynolds.
“They couldn’t. Most of them can’t go out evenings, you know. But we might put gifts for them on the tree they have at the Home.”
“Or have them hang up stockings,” suggested Louise Johnson. “Just imagine forty long black stockings strung around those parlour walls. Wouldn’t it be a sight?” she giggled.
“Nancy Rextrew wouldn’t have her stocking hung on any parlour wall. It would be in her own room or nowhere,” put in Lena.
“Why not get some of those red Christmas stockings from the five cent store, and fill one for each old lady?” Mary Hastings proposed. “We could go late, after they’d all gone to their rooms, and hang the stockings, full, on their doorknobs.”
“Or get the superintendent to hang them early in the morning,” was Laura’s suggestion.
“Yes, we can get the stockings and the ‘fillings,’” Mary Hastings went on, “and have all sent to the superintendent’s room. Then we can go there and fill them. It won’t take long if we all go.”
“And not have any tree for them?” Myra asked in a disappointed tone.