"Land sakes alive!" quavered Aunt Tryphosa, hurrying to the rescue. "Did n't I tell you I heerd somethin'? What be they?"
"Presents!" cried Maria-Ann, pulling, and hauling, and gathering up, and finally getting the door shut.
"Seems to me I see somethin' white catched onto the door 'fore you shut it," said Aunt Tryphosa. "Better look an' see." Again her granddaughter opened the door, and found the strip of paper on which was written;
"Merry Christmas! with best wishes of
Benjamin and Mary Blossom and May,
Malachi Graham and Rose Eleanor Blossom,
March Blossom and Hazel Clyde,
Benjamin Budd Blossom and Cherry Elizabeth Blossom of
the N.B.B.O.O., and of
John Curtis Clyde of New York; U.S.A.; N.A.; W.H."
"Oh, grandmarm! It's just like a romantic novel!" cried Maria-Ann, who was as full of sentiment as an egg is full of yolk. "It makes me feel kinder queer, comin' just now right after we was talkin' 'bout our tree. You open first, an' then we 'll take turns." Aunt Tryphosa, who was winking very hard behind her spectacles, was not loath to begin.
"Let's haul 'em up to the stove; it's so awful cold," she said, shivering.
"Why, you 've let the fire go down; that's the reason. Don't you remember you was goin' to put on the wood just as the things fell in?"
"So I was," said her grandmother, making good her forgetfulness; in a few minutes there was a roaring fire, and the room was filled with a genial warmth. Then they sat down to their delightful task, Maria-Ann kneeling on the square of rag carpet before the stove.
"My land!" cried Aunt Tryphosa, clapping her hands together as she opened the largest burlap bag; "if that boy ain't stuffed this two-bushel bag chock full of birch bark! Look a-here, Maria-Ann, you read this slip of paper for me; my specs get so dim come night-time."
The truth was, the tears were running down Aunt Tryphosa's wrinkled cheeks and filming her eyes to such an extent that she saw the birch bark through all the colors of the rainbow.