"We all unite in words of praise,
And crown him king of Holidays."
The curtain fell on a tableau: the Holidays, with their flags and banners, old Father Time, and the happy children.
The applause was so vehement it had to rise again for a moment, and then there was an intermission while some of the actors changed their costumes.
When the curtain went up for the last time the cottage was gone, and in its place appeared a row of high-backed chairs on which were seated five little ladies in the quaintest of short-waisted gowns, each with a reticule on her arm, from which she took her needles and began to knit. Then Bess, who sat at one end of the line, looked up, and said in her own sweet little way:
"We're learning to knit, you see, because
We wish to be nice grandmammas;
You would not care, I'm sure, a bit
For a grandmamma who couldn't knit."
Dora, who came next, continued:
"How daintily warm, how soft and sweet,
The tiny socks for baby's feet.
Nothing you'll find in all the land
[135] Fashioned like these by grandma's hand."
Here Elsie took it up:
"All the older children too can tell
How grandma's stockings wear so well,
And how she makes, with greatest pains,
Comforters, afghans, balls, and reins."
Louise had just made a discovery that surprised her, and with shining eyes she recited: