"Well, I'll tell you, Jack, what would please me more than anything else—a perfect report from your teacher. If you could bring me this, on Christmas Day, I would know that it meant hard work for a boy, who is as fond of play and mischief as you."
Nothing more was said on the subject, but little Jack passed out of the room with a stern resolution that that report should be forthcoming, and when Aunt Alice was told of it she exclaimed enthusiastically, "O, Jacky boy, you must get that perfect report, even if it does mean hard work, and we'll lay it in the very center of the pie, sealed up in the prettiest Christmas envelope that I can paint."
III.
"Aunt Bettie, what are you going to put in the pie? For you know everybody must put in something to please grandfather or make him laugh," asked Alsie, after detailing the plan to the dear old black mammy, who had been grandmother's maid when she was a young lady in the long years ago.
Aunt Bettie was considerably beyond sixty, but not many young "niggers" could get around as lively as she, and no one, who had ever dined in that household, could doubt her ability to cook the best meal ever brought to a table.
"Nevah you min', honey—Aunt Bettie'll have somethin' fur de occasion—it's a shame dat doctah won't let Captain Gordon hab no pie nor nuthin', but makes him eat jest dem beat biscuits, when he likes de soft ones so much de best. I'll be ready, chile, on de day 'fore Christmas, so don' you worry yourse'f 'bout me."
"But you mus'n't make him anything that is bad for him, Aunt Bettie. He can't eat the plum pudding, and other rich goodies like the rest of us, you know, because he is too ill and the doctor won't allow it," answered Alsie anxiously.
"I'll 'member all dat," laughed Aunt Bettie reassuringly, as the child departed from the kitchen, but a feeling of sadness came to the faithful old soul as she recalled the festivities of the year before, when Christmas dinner had been prepared for the whole family of children and grandchildren, and the thought of how the dear head of the family had enjoyed that occasion brought tears to her eyes.