“And God bless you, my dear little boy!” said the first gentleman, “and may you always keep your loving heart, and never want a piece of money to make Christmas for the poor.”
Little Jack looked from one to the other with radiant eyes. “You are very good shopkeepers,” he said. “I love you all very much. I should like to kiss you all, please.”
And none of those three old gentlemen had ever had so sweet a kiss in his life.
A LONG AFTERNOON.
“What shall I do all this long afternoon?” cried Will, yawning and stretching himself. “What—shall—I—do? A whole long afternoon, and the rain pouring and nothing to do. It will seem like a whole week till supper time. I know it will. Oh—dear—me!”
“It is too bad!” said Aunt Harriet, sympathetically. “Poor lad! What will you do, indeed? While you are waiting, suppose you just hold this yarn for me.”
Will held six skeins of yarn, one after another; and Aunt Harriet told him six stories, one after the other, each better than the last.
He was sorry when the yarn was all wound, and he began to wonder again what he should do all the long, long afternoon.
“Will,” said his mother, calling him over the balusters, “I wish you would stay with baby just a few minutes while I run down to the kitchen to see about something.”