“Why, didn’t you hear Miss Wright when she was talking this morning in assembly?” asked Meg, surprised. “She said she’ll have a basket in her office tomorrow, two baskets I mean, one for boys’ presents and one for the girls. And we wrap our things up and drop them in, one for a boy and one for a girl; then Miss Wright puts the names on and no one knows what the presents are, not even Miss Wright or Mr. Carter.”
As soon as school was out that afternoon Bobby and Meg started for the stores. It had stopped snowing soon after noon, and the walks were wet and slippery. Some of the children had their sleds out but there was not enough snow for good sledding or coasting.
“We’ll go to the five-and-ten-cent store,” planned Meg. “Isn’t it fun to buy four things!”
She and Bobby spent over an hour, looking at everything on the long counters, and finally Meg bought a chain of blue beads for a girl and a little red-covered address book for a boy. Bobby chose a little pin tray for a girl and for his boy’s present he selected a key-ring.
The twins were nearly beside themselves with eagerness to see the presents, and they insisted on helping tie them up, and Dot wanted to take them to the school and put them in the baskets that night.
“You don’t believe in wasting time, do you, Dot?” teased Father Blossom. “However, I think tomorrow morning will be better. Meg says the tree will not be trimmed till Friday.”
The next day was Thursday, and Meg and Bobby took their tissue-paper wrapped parcels to school and dropped them into the two large baskets which stood in the vice-principal’s office. There was a buzz of excitement in every classroom and Miss Lee, Bobby’s teacher, said that school might as well close then and there for all the work that was being done.
“Tim Roon, if I see you whispering once more,” Miss Lee scolded, “you will have to stay after school an hour tomorrow night. What are you and Charlie Black giggling over?”
Tim Roon merely stopped whispering, but did not explain.
“I wish we could go see the tree,” said Twaddles wistfully Thursday night. “Meg and Bobby have all the fun.”