“'Dinner would be ready in two hours and we went out for a walk and a look at the waste of ruins. It seemed as if there were miles of them—honestly! You see they loaded every basement with dynamite and wired the whole place and then touched the button. Down it came. There isn't a roof standing. We tramped about looking for relics. It was a pretty day and warm in the sunlight.
“'Suddenly a woman, dressed in black, with a little girl about six years old—spick and span and pretty as a picture—came along. They looked like angels to us. Didn't seem so they was exactly human. We stood watching 'em.
“'I reckon I'd have give about a year o' my life for a day's use o' that kid—honestly. I'd just like to have got down on the ground and rolled and hollered and tickled and tossed her just as I used to play with my own kids. My hands itched to get hold of her. We followed along behind 'em kind o' hankerin' and a wishin'. She was a pretty little thing as ye ever looked at, with curly hair hanging down on her shoulders and shiny, silver buckled slippers and white stockin's. I just wanted to frame up some kind of excuse to speak to 'em, but I suppose they wouldn't have understood me.
“'They stopped and looked around a minute and then the woman opened an iron gate and they went into one of the old dooryards. When we came along we saw that the woman was sitting amongst the rubbish and crying.
“'"It's her home—dummed if it ain't,” I whispered.
“'I reckon 'twas natural for 'em to come back to it on Christmas Day—plumb natural to come back to where they had been happy once with all the family around. What a place! You'd think that an earthquake and a cyclone had gone into partnership for about a minute and done a smashing business. About half the back wall was standing and there hung a little corner of the attic floor and the wind had blown the dirt up there and some flowers and grass all withered by the cold had sprung up in it, and beyond that was an old baby carriage with a ragged top and a spinning-wheel.
“'The little girl didn't seem to notice her mother. She was running around on the ruins and picking up broken dishes. I reckon that kid had got used to the crying of men and women. The sight of grief didn't worry her any more—not a bit. She was flying around like a bird on the ruins.
“'We sat down behind some bushes by the iron fence just to see what happened.
“'By and by I heard the little girl call in a voice that kind o' made me swaller—honest it was as sweet as the first bird song in the spring.
“'"Mother! Mother!” she called.