CHAPTER XXIII.
GETTING READY FOR CHRISTMAS.
All the girls had a great deal of Christmas preparation. In the evenings they were busy making their Christmas presents for their friends at home, and Ruby was delighted when her Aunt Emma taught her how to knit wristlets. She was very proud when she had finished the first pair for her mother. They had pretty red edges and the rest was knitted of chinchilla wool.
Perhaps you would laugh at Ruby if I should tell you quite how much she admired them. When she first began to knit she wished that she need not practise nor study nor do anything else, she enjoyed her new occupation so much; and she carried her wristlet around in her pocket, wrapped up in a piece of paper, so that it should not become soiled, and every little while she would take it out and look at it lovingly.
She could imagine her mother's surprise and pleasure when she should give them to her, and tell her that her little girl had knitted every stitch of them for her. There were a great many stitches in the wristlets, and before the first pair was finished Ruby had grown very tired of knitting; but she was willing to persevere when she thought of the pleasure it would be to give them to her mother as her very own Christmas gift to her.
The pair she was making for her father did not take her nearly so long to make, even although they were larger, for she had learned to knit so much more quickly; and she was quite proud of the way in which the needles flashed in her busy little fingers.
Ruby had brought her doll to school with her, and she found her great company when she went up to her room, although she was such a busy little maiden that she did not find much time in which to play with her. Sometimes she would take her over to Miss Ketchum's room and leave her for a few days, so that when she went there for a little visit she would find her doll waiting for her, but generally Ruby had so many other things in which she was interested that she did not find time to play with her child.
But she was making something for Ruthy's Christmas present in which she needed her doll's help very much. Aunt Emma was showing Ruby how to crochet the dearest little baby sacque and hood, for a gift to Ruthy, and as Ruthy's doll was just exactly the same size as Ruby's, Ruby could try the sacque upon her own doll every now and then, and be quite sure that she was getting it the right size.
It was a pretty little white sacque with a rose-colored border, and it was so very pretty that Ruby made up her mind that after Christmas, when she should not have so much to do, she would make another just like it for her own doll. The hood was made to match the sacque, and Ruby could hardly wait for Christmas to come when she thought of the happiness her gifts would give. She was impatient to hear Ruthy exclaim with admiration over the beautiful sacque and hood, and to see how proud her father and mother would be when she slipped the wristlets upon their hands, and told them that she had taken every stitch for them with her own fingers.