"Mr. Cheeseman! you ain't goin' to give it to Lonzo!" cried the pretty girl indignantly.
"Certin I am!" said the old man. "I told him he should take his pick, and he's taken it. I didn't think of that figger, 'tis true, but what I say I stand to. Easy there! I guess you'd better let me lift it out, Cynthy!"
Very tenderly he lifted out the glittering trophy and placed it in Lonzo's outstretched hands. The simpleton chuckled his rapture, and retired to his dim corner—to worship, one might have thought; he put his prize on a low table and grovelled before it on the floor.
Mr. Cheeseman, heedless of Cynthy's lamentations, proceeded to re-arrange the show-window, trying one effect and another, head on one side and eyes screwed critically. Satisfied at length, he turned slowly and rather reluctantly toward Calvin Parks, who had been standing silently by.
"After all," he said apologetically, "Christmas is for the children, and Lonzo is the Lord's child, my wife used to say, and I expect she was right."
Calvin's twinkle burst into a smile.
"That's all right, Mr. Cheeseman!" he said. "That suits me first-rate. I was only wonderin' whether it was just exactly what you would call trade!"