Jan was so full of unselfish love that she diffused warmth, and the chill of the big brownstone house was fast disappearing in the glow of her unconscious girlish sweetness.
But it was part of her charm that she should never think such thoughts as these. Instead, she wondered happily and sleepily how it was that everybody was proving so nice, and resolved to do all she could to make the Christmas play a complete success.
CHAPTER XIII
“‘NOW TREAD WE A MEASURE,’ SAID YOUNG LOCHINVAR”
As Christmas day drew near Jan found that down in the bottom of her heart lurked a dread of the beautiful festival which would crop out at odd moments when the preparations for the play allowed it opportunity. It was not that she was homesick now, nor that every one in her uncle’s house was not affectionate toward her, but Christmas was Christmas and home was home, and she had never before welcomed one beyond the charmed circle of the other. When she thought of her little Poppet, Jerry could not fill her place, and she hardly saw how Christmas could be truly “merry” without the dear home voices to wish it so. But Jan remembered her mother’s rule for being happy, which was to forget oneself and make others as happy as lay in one’s power, and, following this rule, Jan found it working better than she had believed possible.
Sydney had not been able to return her five dollars yet, and Jan had written her mother about its loan, explaining to her that lacking it she could not buy the home presents she had planned to send. The result of this letter had been one from Mrs. Howe, warning Jan against helping Sydney in concealing his troubles and mistakes from his father, but admitting that she was not able to judge the wisdom of Jan’s course in a household to which she was a stranger, and enclosing another five-dollar bill to take the place of the one gone to help poor Sydney.
Knowing how scarce dollars were in the little house in Crescendo, Jan shed a few tears over this letter, but cheered up as she put on her hat and jacket to go out to do her shopping, hoping that the first five dollars were to prove a good investment, and feeling sure that she could never have won Sydney to confession to his father unless she had first found a way to help him to have less to confess.
There was no time to be homesick and dread Christmas, because every moment was so full getting ready for its coming. The play required hard work, for the double change in the cast had thrown it back. Then every other minute which she could snatch Jan worked fast on gifts for the Crescendo dear folk and for those around her. It had been hard work to coax the five dollars into getting her materials for a trifling remembrance for each one on this long list, even though the nimble fingers and quick wits were active in fashioning slight foundations into desirable forms.
Hummie had taught the little girl knitting in the funny German left-handed fashion, and white Shetland wool was so cheap that fifty cents gave her enough for a little hood for Poppet, a scarf for her mother to throw over her head on summer evenings, and another for her aunt, which Jan knit with misgivings of its acceptability.
Little Dresden flowered linen glove and handkerchief cases, daintily embroidered, were the best that Jan could do for Gwen and Gladys, and she made similar cases to hold scarfs for Sydney and her brother Fred. A scrap-book for Jerry and doll’s clothes for Viva took so much time that a less cheery and industrious person than Jan might have lost heart, but she stitched away blithely, and actually accomplished what she had set out to do.