“O, Miss Laura!” Jim cried. “It’s going to be the best Christmas that ever was in this world!”
And Jim was not the only one who thought so before the Great Day was over. The tree at the outdoor school, the day before, was a splendid surprise to every one there except the teacher and Jim, and all the little “out-doorers,” as Jim called them, went home with their hands full. At the hospital the celebration was very quiet, but in spite of pain and weariness, the boys in the first ward enjoyed their gifts as much as Jim had hoped they would. And the Christmas stocking, full and running over, that each old lady at the Home found hanging to her doorknob, made those old children as happy as the young ones.
Jim’s stocking could not hold half his treasures, and words failed him utterly before he had opened the last package. But the Camp Fire celebration was the great success. The tree was a blaze of light and colour, and the gifts which the girls had made for each other were many and varied. Some of the beadwork and basket work was really beautiful, and there were pretty bits of crochet and some knitted slippers—all the work of the girls themselves. Miss Laura had begged them to give her no gift, and hers to each of them was only a little water-colour sketch with “Love is the joy of service,” beautifully lettered, beneath it.
Sadie’s baskets of crêpe paper were really very pretty, and these filled with Elizabeth’s holly cakes were one of the “successes” of the evening. They were praised so highly that Elizabeth was quite, quite happy and Sadie “almost too proud to live,” as she confided to Olga in an excited whisper.
But the best of all was the pleasure of the guests of the evening—Jack Harding and Jo Barton and David Chapin, who all came as Jim’s guests—Louise Johnson’s brother, a big awkward boy of sixteen—Eva Bicknell’s mother, with her bent shoulders and rough hands, and other mothers more or less like her. The four boys helped when the cake and ice cream were served, and Jim whispered to Jo that he could have just as many helpings as he wanted—Miss Laura said so—and Jo wanted several. It was by no means a quiet occasion—there was plenty of noise and laughter, and fun, and Laura was in the heart of it all. They closed the evening with ten minutes of Christmas carols in which everybody joined, and then while the girls were getting on their wraps, the mothers crowded about Laura, and the things some of them said filled her heart with a great joy, for they told her how much the Camp Fire was doing for their girls—making them kinder and more helpful at home, keeping them off the streets, teaching them so many useful and pretty sorts of work.
“My girl is so much happier, and more contented than she used to be,” one said.
“Mine, too,” another added. “I can’t be glad enough for the Camp Fire. Johnny’s a Scout an’ that’s a mighty good thing, too, but for girls there’s nothing like the Camp Fire.”
“Eva used to hate housework, but now she does it thinkin’ about the beads she’s getting, and she don’t hardly ever fret over it,” Mrs. Bicknell confided.
“These things you are saying are the very best Christmas gift I could possibly have,” Laura told them, with shining eyes.
And the girls themselves, as they bade her good-night said words that added yet more to the full cup of her Christmas joy.