Bathed and freshly night-gowned, the Doctor's guests tumbled, a little noisily into bed. Only Jim lay silent and wakeful. Once he nudged his bed-fellow.
"Luke," he whispered, "d'ye think I'd orta tell 'em?"
"Aw," said Luke sleepily, "dry up, Jim! Gosh, ain't the bed soft!"
Jim sighed.
Christmas came to the old farmhouse with the distant echo of village bells at midnight but, long before that, Christmas, in a fur cap and great-coat had swept up the driveway with a jingle of sleigh-bells, behind old Polly, the Doctor's mare, his sleigh packed high with bundles. By the light of a late moon, flinging festal silver on the snow, it might be seen that Christmas resembled a somewhat guilty looking old gentleman with a grizzled beard.
"I'll catch old Scratch!" he admitted, suddenly overcome by the bulbous appearance of the sleigh, "but Ellen may say what she will. She couldn't have thought of everything!"
No call for pills came that night from Muggs, asleep in a crib that had seen much service. He was awake however long before daylight, trembling with excitement.
"Mike, oh Mike!" he called hoarsely. "Wake up. It's Christmas mornin'."
Mike, in a big bed with Marty Fay, sat up.
"Don't you dare open your mouth to-day!" he cried in blood-thirsty accents, "or Mom Murphy'll git ye surer'n scat. Ain't I schemed enuff to git ye here? Huh? Wanta be sent home—huh?" Muggs ducked beneath the blankets with a shivering wail.