“Now we light it after dinner, and put all the other lights out,” Bobby explained to Aunt Miranda. “And then we hang up our stockings and then we go to bed.”
And after dinner the tree was lighted, and the four little Blossoms marched around it, singing the Christmas carols they had learned. Then Mother Blossom helped them to hang up their stockings, four in a row, fastened to the mantle-piece—and very long and black and empty they looked, dangling there—and they said good-night and pattered upstairs to bed.
Just before Mother Blossom tucked them in for the night, Bobby ran over to the window to look at the weather.
“It’s snowing some more!” he cried. “Twaddles, Santa Claus won’t have a bit of trouble getting here; the roof will be covered with snow!”
“If you hear him, you call me,” directed Twaddles.
“Call me,” begged Dot sleepily from her bed. “I want to tell him something special.”
CHAPTER X
CHRISTMAS AT HOME
WHATEVER it was Dot wanted to tell Santa Claus, he was not to hear it this Christmas. When the four little Blossoms woke Christmas morning, it was already light and they tumbled downstairs to find the four stockings bulging with knobby packages. They made so much noise that they awoke everyone else in the house and Norah served breakfast a half hour earlier than usual.
“Could I open one bundle, Mother?” Twaddles kept saying. “Could I open one bundle? Just that little square one. That doesn’t look exciting, Mother.”
“That little square one happens to be marked with my name, young man,” said Father Blossom, “and I don’t intend to have any surprises spoiled ahead of time.”